


The Abyss

by Poetry



Series: Dæmorphing [26]
Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, Alien Culture, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Daemons, Angst, Auxiliary Animorphs, Book 52: The Sacrifice, Chee - Freeform, Daemons, Dark, Gen, Horror, Moral Ambiguity, Pandemics, Revolution, Taxxons, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:33:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 54,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28183209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poetry/pseuds/Poetry
Summary: The Animorphs and their allies fall farther than they ever have before.
Series: Dæmorphing [26]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/8983
Comments: 281
Kudos: 97





	1. Two Mercies

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to @litluminary for beta reading, and to @crowles for beta reading and transcribing my dictation of the last chapter. 
> 
> Please note that this whole fic gets a content note for virus / pandemic horror that deliberately plays on similarities to COVID-19. More specific content notes will accompany each chapter. The Mature rating is for violence and horror, not sexuality.
> 
> I'm playing a bit of a game with the chapter titles: they're counting titles. For example, the first chapter, "Two Mercies," contains two acts of mercy. Each chapter title will count a certain type of event.
> 
> Attributions for the banner: the Courier Prime font is by Alan Dague-Greene, and the chasm icon is by Sean Maldjian.
> 
> Updates weekly on Saturday/Sunday depending on your time zone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content notes in the endnotes, if you want them.
>
>> Somewhere out there is someone who had loving parents, watched clouds on a summer’s day, fell in love, lost a friend, is kind to small animals, and knows how to say “please” and “thank you,” and yet somehow the two of you are going to end up in a dirty little room with one knife between you and you are going to have to kill that human being.
> 
> – Unknown Armies RPG playbook, by Greg Stolze and John Tynes

**Michelle**

Efdram 58 turned the memory over in my mind like a well-polished stone as she walked me down the deinfestation pier. It was an obsession with her, as it had been with Edriss 907, though for different reasons. 

«Cassie risked everything to come down here and save you,» Efdram murmured. «She is merciful. She is weak. Sooner or later, she will come to save you, and we will take her.»

«She won’t, you fool,» I said. «You can see my memories. I told her not to risk herself for me.» I remembered the sharp burning edge as she held a Hork-Bajir wrist blade to my throat. «She’ll do what she has to do.»

«Hmm,» said Efdram. «We shall see.» She knelt at the end of the pier and dropped into the Pool.

Three days. Three days under a Yeerk who hated me and everything I believed in. The host-breaker brought in to break the Peace Movement traitor. She hadn’t broken me yet. But there were so many days yet to come, so many rane.

A Hork-Bajir warrior lifted me in one arm like a sack of groceries and carried me toward my new cage. I wondered who I would find there. I missed my old cagemates already. I missed Eva, my cagemate the one time Edriss 907 had fed on the Pool Ship, who had held me and talked with me about our brave, desperate children. 

I was tossed into a cage with two Asian teenagers and a middle-aged white couple, who were huddled together whispering softly to each other. The teenage girl lay on the floor with her caracal dæmon draped over her like a blanket. He growled at me. The teenage boy, who held a colorful crab dæmon, smiled at me softly. “Hi. I’m TK.” He ran a finger along the edge of the crab’s shell. “This is Mona. Welcome to Cage Three, early tef-rane.”

I drew Dashiell out from the inside pocket of my jacket and took a moment to breathe with him, his face against my forehead. “Mishi,” I said. Walter called me that as a pet name sometimes. I missed hearing it. I put Dashiell down on my knee. “And Dash.”

The girl on the floor stared up at me, hard. “You’re the one who just got busted for being Peace Movement.”

I nodded and petted Dashiell silently.

“You were an idiot to work with the traitors,” the girl snarled. The caracal slunk off her chest and bared his fangs. “My mom was Peace Movement and they killed her. You have kids? Huh? You want ‘em to end up like me?”

Tears welled up in my eyes. I didn’t say anything. What was there to say to an enslaved girl grieving her mother? I couldn’t explain anything so it all made sense. There was no sense in any of it.

“That’s Mary Chiang and Shengkai,” TK said. “Don’t be mean, Mary, this sucks for all of us.”

Shengkai hissed. Mary spat, “I didn’t say you could tell her my name.”

TK ignored her. “Those two in the corner are Hedrick and Sally Chapman. It’s best if you don’t bother them.”

Of course. I hadn’t recognized the vice principal, all hunched up and red-faced with tears, but now I saw his dæmon, a gladiator in the paws of Sally’s kangaroo rat dæmon.

Mona scuttled forward to get close to Dashiell on my knee and whispered to him, “Their daughter is one of the Peace Movement hosts who disappeared. Their Yeerks got demoted after that – they don’t know what happened to her. I think they’re just trying to hold it together.”

My tongue stuck in my throat. Dashiell said, “My old Yeerk – the one who got starved for being Peace Movement – she was a Sub-Visser. I know something.”

Mona’s eyes stretched outward on their little stalks. “Well, maybe you should go tell them.”

I swallowed thickly. Dashiell climbed up to my ear. “Wouldn’t you want to know? If you were them?”

“Of course,” I whispered. I just didn’t know how to say it.

I walked over to their end of the cage, avoiding Mary and her dæmon on the floor. “Mr. and Mrs. Chapman?” I said gently.

They startled and looked up at me. “You,” Sally said. “You’re Cassie’s mother.”

I crouched down next to them. “Yes. But more importantly, I was a Sub-Visser’s host. I saw high-security clearance records.”

Hedrick clutched at his wife’s arm. “Melissa. You know…?”

“Her file is still active. She’s still listed as missing. They haven’t found her.” Their eyes lit up. “That doesn’t mean she’s… but they haven’t caught her.”

Sally gave a shivering sigh and leaned into Hedrick. Her dæmon clutched his like a little insect doll. “I know. I know. She might have died out there. But at least… at least they haven’t taken her.”

“And maybe,” Hedrick whispered, “she’s free.” He looked up at me. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

  


  


**Ax**

The sick children from the hospital, the ones who called themselves the Campsite Rule, helped us. So did the free Taxxons. We did not tell anyone the truth of why we had a sudden urgent need to infiltrate a children’s hospital.

It began with a midnight conversation between Cassie, Walter, and a disabled boy named James in the hidden park below Chee-bachu’s human house. 

It went on with a message from the _Ralek River_ to the makeshift communications center in the Living Hive. _Can you dig a tunnel to the attached coordinates?_

_Unnecessary,_ came what we would soon realize was a characteristically terse reply, with a detailed map of the sewers and other human-built tunnels of Santa Barbara attached. From there, it was a relatively simple matter to emerge from a sewer entrance near the hospital. We took the nurse-Controller entirely by surprise, and managed to get away with our objective while only damaging some medical equipment, which we could only hope was not critical to saving a child’s life. We fled back into the sewers with our cargo, until we met a free Taxxon at the place where the sewer became an arm of the Living Hive.

We did not rescue the Campsite Rule children who had been left behind in the hospital, as James had asked us to do. The risk and their medical needs were too great.

All of these events led us to where we were now, in the damp, close air of the Living Hive, befouling my newly-returned Andalite senses. 

Austere, the Taxxon who had transported us and our cargo here from the hospital, hissed in xyr language, and the translation collar around xyr neck spoke in flat Galard. “ _Eventually, you will have to conquer your fear and acquire Taxxon morphs. We are not your personal transport service, and we will not continue to serve at your convenience unless you help us in return._ ” Xe deposited the payload on the muddy ground and disappeared back into the muck.

«Prince Jake,» I said wearily. «We will need to renegotiate terms with the Taxxon queen Judicial.»

“Don’t worry about that right now,” Prince Jake said, too gently, as Rachel hauled up the heavy case and balanced it with a steadying hand on her dæmon’s glossy dark back. We trudged through the mud to the _Ralek River,_ which after only a few days in the Living Hive was already streaked with a few faint reddish filaments of bioluminescent fungus amid the layer of grime. I placed my hand on the door panel and tried not to remember the last time we entered this ship. 

But this time, when it opened, there was no reek of Hork-Bajir blood. It was entirely up to Andalite military regulation, for all it had only two fully living occupants, now, Arbat dead and Aloth in stasis for his crimes. Gonrod was nearby on a terminal. He swiveled a single stalk eye to look at us and said, «I sent her a message. The Pool is activated. She will be there.» His thought-speech was entirely blank of any emotion.

Up the drop shaft, to the second level of the ship. I could somehow feel that Tobias worried about me, though I did not look at him. The beginnings of a bond between us, perhaps, like Mertil and Gafinilan shared, but I was too numb with horror to consider it just then. 

The makeshift Pool was in a converted laboratory space on the second level. I heard the hum of the activated Kandrona generator. As I stepped closer, I saw the Pool was filled with sludge. 

Rachel hauled the briefcase from Abineng’s back to the edge of the Pool. When she opened it, I could no longer disguise the truth of it to myself. It was not cargo, or a payload, or a briefcase. It was a portable Pool full of helpless captives whom we had abducted for medical experiments. The sight of their slug bodies roiling under the surface of the sludge disgusted me. It did not matter. They were slimy, parasitic, foul servants of an invading empire, sent to interrogate a group of disabled human children, and they were people who we were about to hand over to a monster.

Tobias landed next to Rachel on the edge of the Pool. He said to our prisoners, «I’m sorry.» Then Rachel tipped the Yeerks into the prison I had built for them. They fell into the sludge with a dull splash.

The door hissed open, and Estrid walked in. Without any interference from my conscious mind, my body attacked her. No finesse, no grace, nothing like the elegant _hald-wurra_ she had executed on me in her quarters. Somewhere, someone was ordering me to stop. My body kept moving. I thought of the way Hork-Bajir fight, with their entire bodies, and roughly grabbed Estrid’s wrists as I reared back and struck her with my front legs. She staggered off-balance, then restored her equilibrium, kicking right back at me. I was forced to let go of her wrists. In an instant she had her tail-blade at my throat. I froze.

«What will you do to them?» I demanded.

Estrid’s main eyes narrowed. «I have a strain of the virus I hope might work. I will inject them with it and observe the results.»

_Hope. Might._ I was used to far more easy confidence from her. «And if it does not work?»

«It _must_ work,» Estrid said, for a moment I saw utter desperation in her eyes. I wondered what she was so afraid of. «It _must_.»

« _And if it does not?_ »

Estrid slumped and relaxed her blade away from my throat. «Then you find me new test subjects,» she said.

A chasm yawned open inside me. I brought my blade up to bear against hers in a lock, force meeting force. « _How do you drink this poison?_ » It was an Andalite metaphor. The humans I knew spoke of thoughts occurring to them, while we Andalites consider thought a river, outside of ourselves, into which we can dip a hoof and drink. But some thought-rivers are poison, and it is death to an Andalite to drink from them.

«You slept through biology class, Aximili,» Estrid said coldly. «There is no such thing as poison. Everything has a fatal dose. Some are very small, others very large. If I give you an untested virus to unleash on this planet, these Yeerks may well die anyway.» She twisted free of my hold. «Now let me monitor my test subjects.»

I stepped back, numb and cold. Loren stared at me, gray-faced, clutching Jaxom to her chest.

Prince Jake looked at Loren and Tobias. “Take him home.”

Loren. Tobias. My human family, who loved me but could not explain what to do when every river of Andalite thought ran black with poison, when they had once been clear.

  


**Jake**

Judicial, the leader and queen of the Taxxons, was really just _way too big_. Like fallen tree size, except all squiggly with lots of legs.

_You are a general and she is the leader of a powerful allied army,_ Merlyse said, nipping at my ear. _Close your eyes and imagine she’s M from GoldenEye._

_Screw it,_ I thought. _I will. She won’t know it’s rude._ I stood as close to Judicial as I could stand – twice the distance of my outstretched arm – at the edge of the well full of little Taxxon-tadpoles. I looked down into the well, not at her, and said, “I want to keep working with you. You’re good allies to have. I can see that. Is there something we can do on our end? A gesture of goodwill or something?”

Merlyse watched Arbron over my shoulder as he translated for Judicial. She hissed back, and Merlyse said, _She’s M. Judi Dench. Respectable older lady. Who hisses for some reason. It’s fine._

Arbron said, «Illim says you have infiltrators high in the Empire hierarchy. Can your allies bring another Living Hive from the Taxxon homeworld into Earth orbit?»

I looked down into the muddy water, rippling as the tadpole-things swam through it. “Maybe. I can ask, at least. But – why?”

«I can answer that on my own,» Arbron said. «Living Hives live in symbiosis with Taxxons. They need the burrowing action of Taxxons to turn and refresh the soil. The exodus of Taxxons off-world to join the Empire has been an ecological disaster for Living Hives. They are dying. We want to save Living Hives – and ourselves – by reuniting ourselves with our anchors, as you call it.»

“Do you think you can get more Taxxons to leave the Empire that way?” I said.

«Not on its own,» Arbron said. «Living Hives couldn’t make their Taxxons stay back on the homeworld, and believe me, they tried. But without some surviving off-world Hives who understand what the Empire’s done to us, what’s going on out here – there might not be a home to go back to.»

I hunched my shoulders. I notice myself doing that sometimes – little birdlike gestures, like Merlyse, as if I were folding up my wings. “Tell me what you want to say in the message,” I said, “and I’ll pass it on to our contacts.”

A long, hissed conversation between Arbron and Judicial. Then: «Judicial says sie is not sure if sie can trust you to do this. But sie’s willing to take the risk. As long as none of your activities in the Hive endanger us – the Taxxons – we can keep working together.»

I went into four-eye and saw Arbron through Merlyse’s eyes, over my own shoulder. Fearsome at first look, a mouth bristling with teeth, all those pincers, but I knew well how easily Taxxon flesh tore to teeth and claws. The Taxxons were fragile – and afraid. “We’re at war. No one is safe. But we’ll try not to land you in more danger because of us.”

  


**Ax**

When we returned to Kref Magh, I heard the thought-speech crackle of my makeshift Andalite radio transceiver. 

I ought to say “our” makeshift Andalite radio transceiver – I am not too proud to admit that Peter Chen and Mertil helped a great deal. We pooled our knowledge and used spare parts from the _Ralek River_ to build a transceiver that could intercept Andalite frequencies within range. These days, there _were_ Andalite frequencies within range of Earth. Even though we had not collected vital intelligence yet, that fact alone told us that the Andalite fleet was coming nearer.

I followed the thought-speech broadcast to its source: Mertil, standing on a rock at the edge of the ravine, holding the transceiver. 

«You wanna go hang out with Mertil?» Tobias said.

«Yes,» I said. I hesitated. «I would like to go alone.»

A pause. «That’s okay,» Loren said. «We’ll find you later.»

I was grateful they did not push. I landed on the rock beside Mertil, and he flicked a stalk eye toward me. I demorphed, and listened as Mertil scanned the frequencies. It was mostly static, but sometimes –

«…we require a full inventory of weapons in need of repair aboard the _Elfangor_ …»

«…morale among the troops is high. Scanners indicate that the Yeerk forces are concentrated around the Human homeworld, which means we can strike a decisive blow…»

«…we interview a warrior on the front lines of battle. Melenor-Ixtant-Frodlin, tell us about your great victory in the Anati…»

«…I thought I would be able to come home to you after all of the bloodshed in the Anati system, but instead we go on to another front of the war, which of course I cannot specify. Give all my love to Gawanaith and the children…»

When I was fully Andalite again, Mertil swept a stalk eye over me and said, «You saw her.»

I lowered my main eyes in acknowledgment. Mertil tuned the transceiver. It crackled and whined. 

«…made a strong impression at the art exposition at the Crangar Memorial Fields, with an installation funded by noted patrons of the arts Forlay-Esgarrouth-Maheen and Noorlin-Sirinial-Cooraf, parents of…»

« _What_?» I cried. «Those are my parents! Mertil, tune into that frequency!»

Mertil adjusted the transceiver. Clusters of thought-speech concepts burst through the static: «…depicts the melancholy… loss… their younger son Aximili… open to the public until…» until the static finally swallowed it all.

«My parents are commissioning art about me,» I said, trying to comprehend it. «Why?»

«Perhaps because they miss you,» Mertil said gently, and kept on scanning the frequencies.

«…reverence for all that lives, my sacred trust…»

«…new representatives to the Electorate raised budget concerns about the requests for more funding to the shipyards… release of sealed records related to the Anati…»

And then – _djafid_. Beautiful _djafid_ , a telepathic dawn rising over a barren field. It made me think of Firi Dria’s pressed flowers, pale sunrise colors on snow. «Do you recognize the singer?» I asked Mertil.

He flicked his fingers no. We stood on the rock, stiff and awkward, but slowly relaxed as the _djafid_ washed over us, that sweet hopeful light in a bleak landscape. 

«That was _Midnight Sun,_ from the western Ixilan. Next: a composition inspired by the morph dances of Ursha-Sollawit-Jibril.»

«The western Ixilan. That is Gafinilan’s people,» Mertil said softly. 

I turned my hand palm-up in recognition. I had remembered hearing that – Gafinilan had been the first Ixilan to qualify as a fighter pilot at the academy. 

«The singer of that _djafid_ was almost certainly _tzeraf_ ,» Mertil said, watching me. «What you would call a _vecol_. That is the Ixilan way. Not that the radio announcer was likely to have known that.»

I turned my hand in recognition again. I did not know what else to do. Mertil was a _vecol_. That did not mean quite the same thing to either of us as it did to the likes of Estrid. _Vecol_ contains the thought-speech impression of a dying branch trimmed away for the health of the tree. When Mertil said it, it also had an echo of broken shackles. I did not yet know what I meant when I said it.

We did not recognize the next _djafid_ on the radio, or the next. Finally, there was one I recognized, an ekphrasis of a cloud-artwork that had been popular before I left my world. My main eyes met Mertil’s, and I saw the same strange ache there that gripped my own hearts. We had left – no, we had been stranded, abandoned – and our world had moved on without us.

  


**Eva**

I read the message again.

> _The new weapon is in its testing phase. We’ll keep you updated on its progress._

«Love that part,» Aftran commented. «Nice and foreboding. Who are they testing it on, anyway?»

“There is really no good answer to that question,” I muttered, and read on.

> _Our main point here: we’re in contact with a Taxxon resistance group, and they think you should order an inoculation of a Living Hive from the Taxxon homeworld to the Pool Ship. We agree that it’s a good idea. I don’t want to get into details here, but we’ve seen proof that it helps suppress the Taxxon Hunger. That means they can think more clearly, and they’re not so dependent on the Empire for food. Their_ hrala _is also tied up in it, like a dæmon. It even talks like a dæmon. Having a Living Hive on your ship could get the Taxxons on your side when the chips are down. I’m sure you can come up with an excuse for the brass about why you need to order one up, so I won’t spitball any ideas here._

«I’m still thinking about that one,» Aftran said. «Come back to me.»

> _Start thinking about how to get the weapon up there once it’s done. That’s all for now. I won’t sign off. You know who I am._

«Jake,» said Aftran.

I wrote back a two-word answer.

> _How infectious?_

«A cost-saving measure,» Aftran said.

I folded over and rested my head against the top of Mercurio’s. I said, muffled into his head feathers, “A what?”

«You know how much we spend on fresh meat for Taxxons,» Aftran said. I didn’t comment on her use of “we,” because I was trying to work with her here. «If the Living Hive suppresses the Hunger, then it’s a cost-saving measure. That’s on everyone’s minds right now, isn’t it?»

It was. The Council of Thirteen had gone over our most recent budget with a fine-toothed comb. With the sudden human scrutiny on the Sharing’s finances – I’d bet anything my old friend Celia Hernandez was involved, if I had any worldly possessions to gamble with – and the looming arrival of the Andalite fleet to this solar system, the Empire was trying to cut costs wherever it could. Taxxons were only voluntary hosts so long as they were consistently fed, and feeding all the Taxxons on and around Earth was not easy or cheap.

I pressed the button to summon my personal assistant, Trafit 1482. Their yellow lantern eyes were bleary as usual – they never let us see them stumble, but the rumor was that they slept in a cycle of catnaps so they would be always ready at a moment’s notice for my summons. I’d feel sorry for the poor Gedd this Yeerk puppeted if I had any room in my emotional palette for pity for other hosts.

“I need an order sent out,” I said. “Tell Visser Six on the Taxxon homeworld to send along an inoculation from a Living Hive with their next shipment. And set up a room with a tank for it. I get exclusive access to the room once it’s arrived until I’ve decided it’s ready.”

Trafit 1482 startled, translucent eyelids snapping shut. “Visserrrrrr,” they growled. Then they gestured over their tablet. “Visser Six issued an interdict against spreading the Living Hive,” said the tablet in neutral Galard. “They say it makes the Taxxons homesick. Discontent.”

I felt the nudge from Aftran that meant she was going to take over, and she snarled silkily, “Who cares if they miss their little mud holes? They’re a hundred light-years from home. We have them now, there’s nothing they can do about it, and we can’t afford to spend half our host maintenance budget on _meat_! I have a tip from a source on the Taxxon homeworld that says Taxxons can be kept obedient on two-thirds of the feed allotment if they’re exposed to Living Hive strains regularly. Send the order, and denounce Visser Six for an incompetent fool in your report to the Council if they disobey.”

Trafit’s gummy eyelids slowly slid back open. They bowed their head and said, “Visserrrrrr,” and left.

I sighed, rubbed my face with the heels of my hands, and sat back down at my terminal. There was a new message from our remaining Chee contact with Earth. Just one word.

> _Very._

  


  


**Celia Hernandez – Encrypted Private Message**

  


**Celia Hernandez**

If you’re there, pass on my compliments to the Animorphs. The public outrage over the Sharing exposé is drawing the Attorney General’s attention without me having to do anything except make encouraging noises on phone calls. 

  


**Celia Hernandez**

Anyway, I wanted to give you the heads up on my next move. My public image is shot right now – everyone’s saying I’ve gone paranoid because I won’t leave my bunker. Even after the public assassination attempt and everything - the nerve! Anyway. I’m ordering two-week long military exercises out in the Mojave Desert, going regiment by regiment. That’ll help me work out which ones I can trust, and if any of them say no, that’s insubordination, and my conspiracy theories about subversives in the government start to sound a little less cuckoo. 

  


**Lourdes**

Be careful. If you order them to cut themselves off from Kandrona, they might go rogue and turn on other units. 

  


**Celia Hernandez**

I hate to say it, but at this point, that might be the best outcome. Then at least it’d be out in the open that something seriously hinky is going on. 

  


**Celia Hernandez**

Got any new intel for me? I feel cut off at the knees down here in this stupid bunker. 

  


**Lourdes**

I can’t tell you everything, of course, because I don’t know if you’ve been compromised or not. But I can tell you things that the Yeerks know anyway. Did the Animorphs tell you about the Andalites? 

  


**Celia Hernandez**

No. Everything was kind of a big blur. All I know is there are Yeerks, they take over people’s brains, they have space weapons, they want our planet. 

  


**Lourdes**

The Andalites are the Yeerks’ greatest enemies. They are the reason why the Animorphs can change into animals – that’s an Andalite technology they acquired illicitly. 

  


**Celia Hernandez**

Oh yeah, Loren mentioned something about it being alien tech. So, what about the Andalites? 

  


**Lourdes**

The main part of their fleet is coming toward Earth. We don’t know when they’ll arrive. 

  


**Celia Hernandez**

Okay. So we just have to hold out until the Andalites get here and mop them up? 

  


**Lourdes**

Don’t assume that the enemy of your enemy is your friend, Celia. The Andalites have already committed genocide in an attempt to slow the Yeerks down. So maybe start thinking of reasons why they shouldn’t consider you acceptable collateral damage. 

  


**Celia Hernandez**

Oh, great. Another damn thing to worry about. So, tell me more about these Andalites. 

  


**Lourdes**

They are far more technologically advanced than humans and consider themselves the peacekeepers of the galaxy. 

  


**Celia Hernandez**

Cool. Just what I needed. A bunch of Henry Kissinger-ass motherfuckers from space. You’re just a little ray of sunshine, Lourdes. 

  


**Lourdes**

Speaking of your problems with your military. Once you have a regiment you can trust, we could use some fresh supply. Do you think you might have access to some rations and medkits? 

  


**Celia Hernandez**

Please. These bunkers out in the desert have enough nutritionally balanced bags of slop to survive a nuclear winter. You can have as much as you could ever want, as long as you can stomach it. 

  


**Melissa**

“Slowly,” I told Jordan. “Just raise your legs up… up…”

Tseycal watched from a safe distance as Jordan tried to raise herself up from her knees-on-elbows position into a real handstand, for about the tenth time since I started teaching Jordan gymnastics. She stretched up, up, wobbling just a little, but it looked like she just might make it –

«MORPHERS!» Tobias shouted from overhead in public thought-speech. Tseycal squeaked, and Jordan fell over. «I need all hands on deck! The Gold Bands are close to Kref Magh! Morphers, get wings! Everyone else, get ready for evac!»

Jordan picked up Tseycal and threw him into the air. “Stay safe,” she choked out, then went running after her dæmon, back toward the human camp. 

Ververet already had the merlin in mind. Feathers raced across my arms, and yellow scales crawled up my legs. _Faster, faster,_ I thought. _They need me out there._

“This isn’t a patrol, you know,” Ververet said, as my ribs bowed outward into the deep breast of a powerful flier. “We’re going to have to fight the Gold Bands to keep them away from here. We’re gonna have to do what Rachel taught us.”

I would have gritted my teeth if I’d had teeth anymore. I didn’t like it, but – _Yeah, I get it. I’ve been paying attention._

Ververet disappeared, and didn’t say anything else. I launched myself into the sky, the beautiful valley laid out below me. _When did this become home?_ Ververet thought.

_I don’t know,_ I thought. _But it is. And we have to protect it._

I saw the other raptors in the sky, and more rising to meet us. I followed the red-tailed hawk, north past the roar of the waterfall.

  


_“You have to listen to us when you’re in a battle,” Rachel said. “Even if what we tell you sounds insane, don’t ask questions, just do it.”_

_“You mean listen to Jake,” Julie said, “because he’s the leader.”_

_“Well, yeah,” Rachel said, leaning back against Abineng. “Duh. But not just him. If Cassie tells you you have to demorph, you do it. If you’re in the air, and Tobias tells you to look out, you duck. Cassie knows morphing. Tobias knows the sky. We all know what we’re doing. We’ve been in this war for three years. We’re vets. You four? You’re fresh meat.”_

  


«There they are! Up ahead!» Tobias said. «Get below the canopy before they see our _hrala_!»

I hadn’t seen them yet, but I took Tobias at his word and dove through a gap in the trees north of the valley. Human again, Ververet fluttering his wings against my chest as fast as my heartbeat. And then the black bear.

The black bear didn’t want to fight. It wanted to climb a tree and find some nice fruit to eat. But instead I marched it toward the strange smells coming from further north. 

  


_“Most animals don’t want to fight,” Rachel said._

_“Not even sable antelopes,” Abineng said, “believe it or not.”_

_“You’ll do better if you can convince the animal mind why it should fight. If you’ve morphed a predator, tell it your enemy’s prey. If you’ve morphed something territorial, tell it your enemy’s an intruder on its turf. If you’ve morphed a herd or a pack animal, tell it your enemy’s gonna hurt its family. Give the animal mind a reason to work with you.”_

_“What if we morph Hork-Bajir?” Jamal said. “They’re not animals.”_

_Rachel shrugged. “Then all you have are the usual reasons to fight. Whatever they are.”_

  


I told the bear that the strange smells came from a predator invading its territory. A growl built in my chest. I crashed through the trees, faster than I could go as a human at a sprint. 

And then there was the growl of a Hork-Bajir on the attack, an old female by the sound of her. A veteran of who knew how many battles, her blades notched. 

_I wonder what stories she’s heard,_ Ververet said. _I wonder what she’s seen._

  


_“What’s the best way to disable a Hork-Bajir?” Walter said. “Can they be hamstrung, like an Earth animal?”_

_Abineng snorted and lowered his head to show the points of his horns. Rachel’s mouth thinned. “You don’t disable the enemy. You kill.”_

_Ververet exploded from his perch on my forearm in a frenzy of pale wings. “But they’re innocent!” I said. “The hosts haven’t done anything!”_

_Rachel turned her burning blue eyes on me and shook her head. “Cassie tried that. She wanted to be merciful to the hosts. And then she found out what the Yeerks do to maimed hosts. They kill them, because they’re not_ useful _anymore.” Abineng took half a step forward. “Trust me. Don’t hesitate. Not even for a second. Aim for the kill and make it quick.”_

  


_But this is different,_ Ververet said. _Rachel hasn’t lived with the free Hork-Bajir for a year. She doesn’t see them the way we do. She doesn’t understand. None of the Animorphs do; the war ate up their hearts. The free Hork-Bajir will save the disabled hosts. That’s someone’s mother, right there. If we just let her live, they’ll do anything to save her._

So instead of leaping for the Gold Band’s throat, I charged at her legs and bit, tearing at her hamstrings. She staggered, hobbled, and fell to her bladed knees in the leaf litter. I ran. The free Hork-Bajir would find her and help her. I hadn’t become a monster like the Animorphs had. They had tortured my father; I was a better person than that.

TSEEEEWWWW!

I collapsed to the ground, stunned. My whole body went numb and tingly, as if I’d hit my funny bone everywhere. I heard the Hork-Bajir-Controller drag herself toward me by her arms. I had to demorph, remorph, get out of here. I focused on my human body.

_Oh God, Verv. She must have had a Dracon beam. She’s gonna kill me._

Ververet wept silently in my head. _Okay. Okay. If we don’t make it, Melissa – it’s okay. We saved her. One of the Hork-Bajir will find her and bring her back to Kref Magh. It’s worth it. It’s worth it._

My human body came back to me, but slow, too slow. Darkness swam at the corners of the bear’s dim vision. Hork-Bajir claws dug into my shoulder and pulled me backward. Next it would be her wrist blade at my throat. _I’m sorry, Verv. I’m so sorry. I love you._

I demorphed as fast as I could and waited in dread for the blade, but it never came. The Hork-Bajir-Controller pressed the sides of our heads together in an intimate embrace. _Why?_ Ververet thought, faintly. _What is she doing?_

And then there was something cold and slimy in my ear.

“NO! NOOOOOO!” I struggled with all my might, but all I could do was squirm around like a weak puppy in the Hork-Bajir’s powerful grip. I tried to morph small, too small for the Yeerk to infest, but I wasn’t done morphing off the bear. I saw Ververet in my line of sight and focused on him fiercely. The dark fur retracted into my skin, but still the Yeerk burrowed deeper into my ear. I clawed at my ear, pinched at the tail-tip of it, but it just came off like a piece of chewing gum in my fingernails.

Human, merlin, human, black bear, human. Too many morphs. I needed to be a beetle. I focused on the beetle I’d acquired from a dead log in the valley. Bluish-black, shiny, round. The Yeerk was _in_ me. I sobbed until my tear ducts disappeared. And then I couldn’t get any smaller. There was a terrible pressure in my head. My head was going to explode! The Yeerk was too big!

_Then let’s explode,_ Ververet said, grim and determined. _Better that than let them take us._

I took a garbled breath through my half-formed lungs and focused on the beetle again. The headache grew impossibly painful, the world tearing apart at blood-black seams. 

Then it stopped. The morph stopped. I couldn’t move.

« _There_ it is,» said the Yeerk. «Now isn’t that interesting?»

The Yeerk found my thought-speech. Reached for it as easily as a tool neatly laid in a box. «The hidden valley is _here_!» It projected the image of its location from overhead in merlin morph, public thought-speech, for all the Gold Bands to see.

_No, no, no!_ I cried. _NOOOO!_

But it was too late. I’d tried to save one Hork-Bajir, and instead, I’d doomed all of Kref Magh.

«What else do we have in here? Do you know how you’ve hidden your supply runs to this valley so thoroughly? _Oh._ » The image of the Chee sprang to mind, against my will, all bare chrome until the holograms flicked on. That terrible public thought-speech again: «The Animorphs are allied with super-advanced androids! Their technology is beyond our wildest imaginings! They are based _here_!» The image of Bachu’s house and the basement under it, terribly clear.

_No, no, you can’t, they’re pacifists, they can’t defend themselves,_ I thought frantically, which made the Yeerk incandescent with glee. 

«Oh, so many secrets in this head of yours… who are your traitorous Yeerk contacts? I know you have them. Aha!» Mr. Tidwell with me in the Chee basement, meeting with the Animorphs in disguise, his eyes and his fish dæmon watery and mild behind protective glass. « _This_ is their mole within the Sharing!» the Yeerk broadcasted, along with the image. «Iniss 799!» Private, within my head: «Now, let’s find out what move you’re planning next in the war…» 

Something appeared in my shattered, half-beetle vision. A grizzled old face – the Hork-Bajir I’d hamstrung. Her Yeerk was in me, and she was free. She’d hauled herself up to a seated position, looming over me. The Yeerk in my head startled. It had forgotten all about its former host. It searched for the image of the beetle in my mind. It was going to disappear as a beetle. It was going to get away!

_Please,_ Ververet begged the Hork-Bajir, silently. _Please kill me before the Yeerk gets away with me. I can’t bear it. Please._

The Hork-Bajir spoke in her own language. I didn’t speak much Hork-Bajir, but it was a phrase I had heard so many times, I knew it by heart. She said, “Free or dead.” And she drove her blade down into my chest with a horrible exoskeletal crunch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content notes: Medical experimentation on unwilling subjects, body horror (more than usual), gore (also more than usual), misgendering, child murder


	2. Three Evils

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content notes in the endnotes.
>
>> Where have all the young girls gone?  
> Gone to soldiers, every one.  
> Oh, when will they ever learn?  
> Oh, when will they ever learn?
> 
> – “Where Have All the Flowers Gone” by Pete Seeger

** Jake **

«The hidden valley is _here_!»

«The Animorphs are allied with super-advanced androids! Their technology is beyond our wildest imaginings! They are based _here_!»

« _This_ is their mole within the Sharing! Iniss 799!»

Each thought-speech broadcast in Melissa’s stolen voice hit my brain like the toll of a bell sounding the end of the world.

 _This fight is over,_ Merl said, appearing for a moment on my arm as I demorphed from tiger to human, getting ready to fly. _We need to evacuate everyone, right now._

«Back to Kref Magh!» I shouted in falcon morph. «Get everybody out of there, NOW!»

 _They have Melissa,_ Merl said. _This is just the beginning. They’ll find out about the_ Ralek River, _the virus, everything…_

«Melissa is dead,» Tobias said. «I found her half-morphed to beetle with her chest caved in. It looked like a Hork-Bajir blade wound.»

 _Good,_ I thought, cold as a winter forest inside. _That limits the damage. Kref Magh, the Chee, Illim and Tidwell. That’s what we have to worry about._

«Ax,» I said. «Get to your computer and contact Lourdes right now. We need to figure out how to get Mertil and all the humans to the Living Hive. Rachel, Tobias, Marco, I need you to guard the easy approach into the valley, the one in the northwest. Don’t make a big last stand, don’t get killed, just make it harder for them to get down there. Cassie, fly to Bachu’s house as fast as you can and warn the Chee. Loren, Walter, Julie, Jamal – come with me and help me evacuate.»

I had included Toby in my thought-speech, and to my huge relief, she said, «Five of my morphers will back up your people guarding the shallower path down to Kref Magh.»

«Thank you, Toby. Come on, people, let’s go.» I flew toward Kref Magh, not caring if the Gold Bands saw me anymore, and hoped like hell the people who were supposed to be following me came behind. 

«Melissa’s dead,» Walter said. «Oh God, oh God, Cassie, she’s _dead_.»

«I know,» said Cassie. «I know. We’ll talk about it later, okay? Right now we have to make sure no one else dies. Come on, everyone. People are counting on us.»

I said, «Tobias said in the last evacuation one of the slowest parts was getting the kids out. We need to focus on that. If you know any of the kids, if they trust you, morph Hork-Bajir, get one of the carrying slings, and haul them out of here. I can get Jordan and Sara.» Jordan wasn’t really a kid so much anymore, but Sara would never leave without her.

«Jamal and I play with Marjorie’s kids sometimes,» Julie said. «We’ll get them out of here.»

In the human camp, people were already packing, thank God. Ax was demorphing in front of his laptop, reaching for it with newly-forming hands. I reached out for Robin with thought-speech and told him we were here and ready to transport the kids. We demorphed and morphed to Hork-Bajir behind the yurts so we wouldn’t scare them too much. 

Naomi and Dan came to me with their younger kids and a carrying sling. Sara and Jordan huddled at their parents’ sides. Jordan looked up at me, licked her lips nervously and said, “That’s you, Jake, right?”

«Yeah. It’s me. I’m gonna get you out of here.»

“Where’s Tobias?” Sara said, hiding half behind Naomi.

 _Excuse me?_ Merlyse thought. _Where’s_ Tobias? _Who am I, chopped liver?_

 _Oh,_ I thought, looking down at Jordan and Sara, the realization coming to me slowly through the winter frost. _They’re afraid of me._

«He’s fighting the Yeerks,» I said. «Keeping them away from here so we can get out safe. We’ll see him later.»

“Go with your cousin Jake, Sara,” Naomi said.

Sara stepped forward, carefully, tears running down her face. I tied the sling around myself and tucked in Jordan first, then Sara next to her. «I’ll see you soon, Aunt Naomi, Uncle Dan.»

Dan nodded and blinked back tears. Naomi just nodded, Caedhren’s crest high and defiant. I turned in Ax’s direction and reached out with my thought-speech. «Ax? What’s going on?»

«The Living Hive does not reach nearly this far,» Ax said. «They must release the _Ralek River_ to come retrieve us. Gonrod pilots it. I gave directions for the ship to find the nearest fire-watch tower; it seemed the most likely landmark the _Ralek River_ could identify from above.»

«Good. Spread the word: we’re all gathering at the fire-watch tower. Go help the team blocking the way into the valley until we’ve got everyone out. And Ax? Where’s Mertil?»

«I do not know.»

«Find him. Now. Get a couple of Hork-Bajir to carry him out if you have to. If we’re gonna fly the _Ralek River_ out of this death trap and back into the Living Hive – we’re going to need him.»

«All right,» I told my passengers. «Hang on tight. We’re going up.» And I leapt up into the trees with all my Hork-Bajir grace. I felt Jordan and Sara gasp against my scaled chest. I swung southward through the trees and reached out with my thought-speech again. «Toby? Where are you?»

“Helping the old and sick,” Toby said, distantly. “What do you want?”

I swung toward her voice, and found her with her mother and several Hork-Bajir with makeshift splints and bandages for their wounds. A couple of Hork-Bajir in merlin morph circled overhead, watchful. She had her little brother, Franaj, on her back. «We’re going to gather at the fire-watch tower and wait for the _Ralek River_ to come pick us up. What are you doing?»

“Scattering and disappearing into the forest as best we can,” Toby said. ”We’ll find you again. We know the way to the Living Hive.”

«Can you… can you spare anyone to help us at the fire-watch tower? If the Gold Bands find us, we’re going to be sitting ducks until the _Ralek River_ shows up.»

“Jake,” Toby rumbled. “I may not be the leader of all my people, but I am still in charge of our security. We are all in peril of our lives and freedom, from the eldest of us to the youngest, because one of the humans we welcomed into our home was captured and betrayed us. No, Jake. We have no one to spare to help you. Not today.” She drummed her tail against the tree and called to her people in their language. They climbed after her through the trees, slow and shaky with age or pregnancy or sickness, and I was suddenly choking on my own bitter shame.

«And Tom?» I called after her. «What about Tom?»

“We need him,” Toby said. “He has answered the call. We are proud to accept him as our brother.”

 _He’s_ my _brother, not yours,_ I wanted to say, selfishly. But Merlyse whispered silently that it was because of our decision, and his, that we would have to share him. To give him up to a new family.

I moved with the Hork-Bajir, toward the steep and difficult path out of the valley, to the south. «Come on,» I called to my team. «This way. We can’t take the easy way out.»

  


** Toby **

The climb up the steep path out of the valley was slow and terrifying. The other morphers and I covered the evacuation as raptors overhead. When a contingent of Gold Bands came too close, we came screaming down from above, talons outstretched. Three of us were shot down from the sky with Dracon beams. Tigak Fet had too much of his head burnt off to demorph. The rest of us brought the fight to the trees, gouging out eyes and spiking joints. The light of victory was terrible and bright in the Yeerks that controlled my people, having flushed out their long-sought prey.

When we got the word that everyone was out of Kref Magh and scattering into smaller groups, we melted back into the forest. I followed Ghat Hefrin’s thought-speech back to the band that included my mother, my brother, Dref Fakash, and Makooma Takit, our newest new-free, hamstrung, with Melissa’s half-beetle, half-human blood still drying on her elbow blade.

“ _What will we do?_ ” my mother said, stopping to bind Makooma’s bleeding shins with leaves and reeds from a stream-bed. She wasn’t yet gravid enough with my clones to really slow her down, but still I worried. “ _How long can we last here with them hunting us?_ ”

“ _Where will we go?_ ” said Uklan Tel. “ _We have no home._ ”

“ _We cannot stay in one place,_ ” said Makooma, testing the fit of Ket’s quick bandage. “ _They will move in many small groups, in all directions. They will always hunt us._ ”

“ _We also move in many small groups,_ ” I said slowly. I thought of the books Tobias had given me, now left behind in Kref Magh. Tobias once tried bringing me _comics_ , stories told with words and pictures, so I could see more of human life. The comic book he brought me was about magically enhanced humans who tried to be heroes but misused their powers. I had found most of it confusing, but there was one quote I remembered, in that moment. One of the would-be heroes was imprisoned together with his enemies, who sought revenge on him. When they cornered him in the prison, he told them, _I’m not locked in here with you. You’re locked in here with me._

 _“The question,_ ” I said, “ _is not how long we will last. The question is how long_ they _will last. We have morphers. They do not. We know this forest much better than they do. And we don’t have a home we have to keep safe from them. If we suspect they’re on our trail, we just move._ ” I focused on my red-tailed hawk morph. I shrank rapidly, disappearing in a spray of leaves, and Franaj shrieked in surprise and fear on my mother’s back. I had forgotten he wasn’t used to seeing morphs. 

It was well enough. It was time he learned. 

As my eyesight worsened to the hawk’s dim _hrala-_ blindness, I reached out with thought-speech. «Ghat. Contact the morphers among us. Tell them we will be the hunters, not the hunted. I must find Elgat Kar. We will soon have many more new-frees, and we will have to help them on the run.»

  


Chee Operating System v18941.0.0 (Branch: Pulim-dev)

System Log 

Instantiation:  MIFDQDG01J CHEE-BACHU (ALIAS: Wena Shih and Yama)

  


_ Chee-naxes gently picks Kelly up and dips the side of her head in the Aftran Plisam Pool, letting Margoth swim out of her ear and away. The  _ Kolumatiy  _ is glowing multicolored ribbons flowing and snapping from the Yeerk to Kelly and Viradechtis, a noiseless patient spider on the arm of her wheelchair. Tobias was right. The  _ Kolumatiy  _ is more anemic in the Pool than it is in the human children and their dæmons. But there was something else he didn’t notice: the  _ Kolumatiy’s  _ light is watery and thin in us, the Chee, as well. _

  


_ The back of my head prickles. I turn around. There is a bright pinprick of the  _ Kolumatiy  _ in the elevator shaft leading down to the underground sanctuary. I run toward it in high alert. So much sentience in such a small space – what is it? As I approach, I begin to suspect – _

  


Alert: Animorph detected. Identity unknown.

  


> external.speakers.configure(voice = ‘WenaShih.sound’, language = ‘English’)

> external.speakers.activate(message = ‘Animorph, you are not welcome here. Leave at once.’)

  


Incoming thought-speech connection

## Bachu, I am so sorry. I came to warn you. The Yeerks took Melissa Chapman. She’s been down here. They know about you and they know about this place. ##

  


_ The chlidren cry out in fear and dismay.  _

  


> security.alert.activate()

  


** CHEE-BACHU **

[FLAGGED] [URGENT] Attention all Chee! The Yeerk Empire has been alerted to our existence! Take action to protect yourself!

  


** CHEE-LONOS **

How did this happen? Who alerted them?

  


** CHEE-ARODA **

One of the humans to whom the radical Chee have revealed themselves, no doubt.

  


** CHEE-NAXES **

Yes. It was one of the humans. I still do not regret helping them.

  


** CHEE-LONOS **

Not even when you’ve put us at risk of disassembly or enslavement by terrible militaristic invaders? 

  


** CHEE-ARODA **

Never mind the radicals. All Chee concerned for our safety and secrecy, I call on you to come join me at the Pemalite ship. There we will be safe, at water pressures no human, Yeerk, or Andalite ship can withstand. We will need to lie low for a few years at least.

  


** CHEE-BACHU **

All Chee concerned for your legacy from the Pemalites, wondering what to do at this great crossroads, I call on you to install the Pulim-dev branch of CheeOS. If you still want to hide at the bottom of the sea after that, be my guest. But you may find your ethics module calls you to do otherwise.

  


** CHEE-EXNIS **

I’ll go and get three vans. @ Chee-alem , start stocking the equipment we’ll need to get the kids on the road. You still have your special printers for false documents, right?

  


_ A dozen questions from the children, too. “What happened? Who’s Melissa? What do we do?” _

  


_ Cassie demorphs. The children of the Campsite Rule gasp and recoil. So do Filshig Traitor and Green Sky, inside the Dual-Operator model they were using to play cards with Julio and Jessie. To my new senses, the sight is marvelous and strange. The wafting translucent curtains of the  _ Kolumatiy  _ firm into hard light as the dæmon Quincy manifests.  _

  


> external.speakers.activate(message = ‘I cannot leave the Aftram Plisam Pool here to be discovered by the Yeerk Empire. I’m sure you agree. Where can we take them?’)

  


Incoming voice connection (language analysis: English)

## I know a place. But it might be better if you don’t know the details, in case the Empire catches up to you. Just like you shouldn’t tell me where you’re taking the Campsite Rule. Do you trust me? ##

  


> external.speakers.activate(message = ‘You are a murderer and a war criminal, Cassandra Clark. I do not trust you. But when my alternatives are leaving these Yeerks to be captured and tortured to death by the Empire, or hiding them somewhere to die slowly of Kandrona starvation, your offer is unquestionably the least of three evils.’)

  


Incoming voice connection (language analysis: English)

## Thanks for the vote of confidence, Bachu. I’ll show you where to drop us off in the city. It’s a playground near the natural history museum. We’ll take it from there. ##

  


** CHEE-BACHU **

@ Chee-exnis : make it four vans. We need one for the Aftran Plisam Pool and its Kandrona generator. And for SymbiontAI. You are responsible for what you have created.

  


** CHEE-EXNIS **

And the Dual-Operator?

  


** CHEE-BACHU **

Not a sentient being in its own right. That I can destroy, rather than see it taken and used by the Empire for its own purposes.

  


_ The children clump together, fearful, seeking comfort. Some turn to Chee-naxes to talk about what will come next. Cassie and Quincy go to James and Cleyr, asking after their welfare. James asks Cassie a question. Cassie replies, and James recoils from her. I tear the Kandrona generator from where it is embedded in the floor. The noise makes some of the children turn and stare.  _

  


_ Cassie morphs again, this time to Hork-Bajir. The  _ Kolumatiy  _ unknots itself from a bat shape as Quincy is pulled into Z-space. She turns to the Aftran Plisam Pool, and has the abstracted look on her face that I now know to mean that she is directing thought-speech that does not include me. Then she looks at me. _

  


Incoming thought-speech connection

## I can help you carry. ##

  


_ She stands at one side of the Aftran Plisam Pool while I stand at the other. I wedge my hands under my side and pull up, making space for Cassie to reach under. I carry most of the weight, but she keeps it from tipping over. We take it up in the elevator to the ground floor of the house. Another trip down for the Kandrona generator. Several more to help the children and dogs out, and SymbiontAI, naively confused and concerned for the Aftran Plisam Pool. Then Chee-exnis is here with the vans. The other Chee move to load them.  _

  


> external.speakers.activate(message = ‘I will go downstairs and destroy the basement. Is there anything left down there that must be salvaged?’)

  


Incoming thought-speech connection

## If you don’t mind, there’s one last thing I need to do down there. ##

  


_ Cassie comes downstairs with me. I am not surprised to see her kneel on bladed knees next to David’s grave, stacked with stones left there by Jake and Rachel. She presses a hand to the engraved name and bows her head. Then she gets back to her feet, and takes the elevator back up. _

  


_ I turn to the basement, suddenly empty of all life, as bereft of the  _ Kolumatiy _ as any built place can ever be. I prepare to take my home apart, to leave only pieces that no one could identify as coming from another world.  _

  


_ This is neither the first nor the last time I must destroy my home and find a new one. It does not hurt any less. In fact, with my  _ Kolumatiy  _ senses active, watching it bleed out of the lovingly wrought artifacts I tear apart, it only hurts more. _

  


** Jake **

Three years ago, I gave up my life and sent myself straight into hell so I could protect my family. But I had never done it quite like this, with my parents defenseless at my back, and my enemies in front of me, roaring for their blood. No, not their blood. Their freedom.

A troop of Gold Bands had found the fire-watch tower, and were calling for reinforcements. More troops kept coming, and we didn’t know how many more they had in reserve. There were no free Hork-Bajir to protect us – they had their own problems. There were nine of us with the morphing power holding them off, and the _Ralek River_ still hadn’t shown up. 

I tore a Hork-Bajir’s throat out with my teeth, and my paws slipped in a slurry of dead leaves and fountaining blood.

«Walter!» Rachel cried. «Fall back! Demorph! You’re losing too much blood!»

A hot burn at my back, and the sickening sensation of my tail coming free and falling off. I whipped around, a little off-balance without my tail to steady myself, and swung a paw at the Gold Band, pushing him backward into Loren’s horns. 

TSSEEEEWWWWW!!!

The sound came from above, too huge to be any handheld Dracon beam. I had no time to look up, though, flattening myself to the ground to avoid a swing from a Gold Band. Tobias said, «It’s the _Ralek River_! And it’s got company!»

An enormous groan of metal, a huge crash, human screams. The earth shook, and the Gold Band got one of my ears, sending hot stinging blood into my left eye. 

«All right, no company,» Tobias said. «And no fire-watch tower either. Oh no, Miguel’s leg is trapped under a beam. Marco, you have hands – »

«Yeah, yeah, I’m on it.»

TSEEEEEWWWWW!

A Shredder beam, blindingly blue-white, lanced down at a group of Gold Bands swinging through the trees to come reinforce the group harassing us. They vaporized, along with the trees they were in, and the trees at the edges of the blast caught fire. 

Walter groaned. «Do the Andalites have any idea how much damage they could cause by starting a forest fire out here?!»

I felt the backwash of air as the _Ralek River_ landed somewhere behind me. The Gold Bands cried out and fought even harder, driven right toward us by the building smoke of the wildfire started by the Shredder blast. It wasn’t just the fight of our lives. It was the fight of our families’ lives, the fight for any hope left in this war. 

I took a deep breath and roared.

Rachel charged ahead, elephant morphed, taking Dracon hits like they were nothing and scattering Hork-Bajir-Controllers in every direction. Loren charged alongside her, horns lowered, as impossible to stop as a truck barreling down a highway. Walter, Julie, and Jamal were a trio of black bears ganging up on Gold Bands that got thrown off balance in the melee. Tobias was our scout overhead, as usual, shouting warnings about dangers we didn’t see, diving down to gouge out eyes when he found an opening. Marco was off with the refugees in gorilla morph, carrying anyone and anything that couldn’t get on the ship alone. And me and Ax, we were the final line of defense, standing between the battle and the ship to stop any Gold Bands that broke through to hurt our people.

I saw death in their eyes as they took aim and shot at bags of food, screaming kids, weeping parents, and walking wounded. But I had just as much death inside of me. No, I had more. This wasn’t even killing, not to Yeerks like them. They didn’t think we were real people. It was just extermination. I knew the Yeerks I was fighting were real people, with hopes and dreams and stories. I knew their hosts were real people, too, sweet and innocent and forced to fight. I knew that each life before me was different, and special, and irreplaceable. And still I sunk my fangs into their throats and tore their lives away in fountains of screams and blood.

«Jake,» said Tobias, somewhere far away. «They’re all on the ship. We need to get out of here.»

«Is the door still open?»

«Yeah.»

«All right, everyone,» I said to the morphers. «RUN!»

I decked a Gold Band across the face with a heavy paw, and turned and ran for the ship. I saw the Bug fighter crashed into the wreck of the fire-watch tower, and smelled a horrible mix of burning chemicals, ash, and blood around the _Ralek River_. I charged onto the ship, sending refugees screaming and bowling backward. «Back!» said Marco. «Everybody, move BACK!»

I demorphed as quickly as I could. Ax came in next, bolting for the bridge. Then Rachel, half-demorphed, a staggering twisted mass of elephant flesh and half-healed Dracon burns. Loren, only a little demorphed, still big enough that she scraped horrible metallic gouges in the corridor ceiling with her horns. Walter, a leg burnt off, bleeding down his snout, with Julie and Jamal half-supporting him. Tobias last, blowing through the closing door just in time. 

I followed Ax to the bridge, bowling people out of my way – it was way too cramped in there with all the refugees on board, and somewhere far away I heard Tobias and Marco sending people up the drop shaft to free up some space. 

Mertil was there on the bridge. So was Gonrod. They were staring at each other with their main eyes while their stalk eyes jittered in every direction. My face heated and my throat tightened with rage. Merlyse took off from my shoulder, flew around the room, and screeched. I said, low and deadly, “Gonrod, if you don’t help Mertil pilot this ship back to the Living Hive, we are _all_ going to die. But I’ll make sure _you_ die first.”

Gonrod lowered his tail. «Very well. I will take weapons.»

Mertil said nothing. He just took his station at the controls and relaxed into the kind of alert trance he seemed to sink into when he piloted. His hands played out a practiced sequence, and the _Ralek River_ rumbled and took off.

I turned around. There was nothing else I could do here. Merlyse settled back on my shoulder. “Come on, Ax, let’s go. We need to find Lourdes.”

He followed me, and I gestured to Rachel, who said, “Lourdes? Why?”

The sheer acceleration of the ship sent everyone but the four-legged Andalites to their knees. There were screams of fear and panic, but I had no time to deal with any of it. I caught myself before I could crash into Robin’s wallaby dæmon huddled against the wall. “Because now the Yeerks know about Mr. Tidwell and Illim,” I said, wobbling back to my feet. “And there’s only one way we’re getting him down to the Living Hive in one piece.”

«How?» said Tobias, struggling up from where he’d been thrown against the wall. Then: «Oh. Are you sure – »

“Oh, I’m sure,” I said. 

Marco, emerging from the dropshaft in human form, said, “She’s in the lab with Estrid.”

“Estrid’s _here_?” Loren said.

Diamanta hissed on Marco’s shoulder. He rolled his eyes with his whole body and said, “Apparently she can’t be pried out of there with a crowbar.” He walked up to a wall terminal and gestured to Ax to come over. 

His fingers flickered in front of the screen. He said, «First level to bioengineering laboratory. We need to speak to Struch immediately. Please join the Animorphs on the first level.»

The ship rattled and pitched. I dropped to hands and knees to hold myself steady. Near me, Rois was flattened against the wall, and Jamal held onto Julie as she shook and said, “Oh God, oh Lord, we’re all gonna die.”

“No you’re not,” Rachel snarled. She was sprawled on top of Abineng, who lay on the ground with his legs tucked under, just barely not touching Jamal. “The people on this ship need you. You’re gonna get them out of this stupid ship alive, and you’re gonna dig out a dry place to camp in the Living Hive, and _you will not let them down._ ”

Lourdes appeared from the drop shaft in her Struch disguise, with no obvious trouble keeping her balance on the wildly accelerating ship. “You called?”

“We need the blue box,” I said.

“Give me a moment.” The hologram didn’t show what she was doing, but I knew that inside it, she was taking the pieces of the blue box out of storage compartments in her body and snapping them together. Then, the holographic monster reached inside its armored shell and pulled out the blue box, offering it to me. I felt every eye in the corridor drawn to that glowing little box. 

“Give it to Rachel,” I said. “Her bird morph can carry it. Ax? Ask Mertil if he can open an airlock.”

Rachel got up and took the blue box. Then she started morphing to bald eagle. “I know it’s not go time yet,” Abi said to Merl, “but I’m taking up way too much space in here.” I noticed that Walter was still in black bear morph, not wanting Emeraude to crowd the corridor either.

Ax came back from the bridge, swaying on his hooves to keep his balance. «Mertil says he can open the first level airlock, but we must clear everyone else to the upper levels first. There will be enormous air turbulence when the hatch is opened.»

“You heard him,” Robin said. “Everybody up. None of us wanna get sucked out an airlock.” The human refugees piled into the drop shaft.

«We’re staying with them?» Walter said. 

I looked Walter in his furry bear face. “If the ship gets shot down before you can get to the Living Hive,” I said, “save as many people on here as you can, and run. Get over the border to Mexico or something. Look after them. Rachel is right. You’re their only chance of staying alive.”

«Then why are you leaving?» Walter said, almost begging.

“We owe Illim and Mr. Tidwell,” I said. “We owe them _big_. And they’re gonna have the entire Yeerk Empire in Santa Barbara screaming down on them as soon as they hear what that Yeerk made Melissa Chapman say in Los Padres National Forest.”

«Then I’ll see you in the Living Hive,» Walter said seriously, and got in the drop shaft. 

I took a breath and started morphing to bird along with everyone else. Ax called out to the bridge, «We are ready, Captain Mertil.»

«I am not a captain, _Aristh_ Aximili. Seven… six… five… four… three… two… one.» 

The airlock roared open, and we were all pulled out of the _Ralek River_ in a rush of air and spiraling bird bodies.

«AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!»

  


** Mertil **

At my signal, Gonrod threaded his tail through the turbulence restraints built into the bridge, while I hooked one of my rear legs into the tail restraint as best I could. Then I opened the first level airlock.

Thought-speak screams filled my head as an enormous vortex of outside air rushed through the bridge. My rear leg was nearly wrenched out of its socket by the force of it. The sound was unbelievable. I had only once before opened an airlock on a moving spaceship in atmosphere, during a practice exercise for a parachute drop. I closed the airlock, hoped the Animorphs would succeed on their mission, and focused my attention on my own.

The console chimed as the ship sensors made contact with a new vessel. I recognized it instantly. «Visser Five’s Blade ship,» I said. 

«He knows the harbor is our escape route,» Gonrod said. «We have used it before.»

I considered the problem, looking at the map of the city spread out below the _Ralek River_. We had one advantage over the Yeerk forces: we had much less to lose by exposing ourselves to human attention than the Yeerks did. I did not like to risk harm to human civilians, but I saw no alternative. I lost altitude and aimed directly for the center of Santa Barbara en route to the sea. 

The pursuing ships quickly understood my strategy, and concentrated their fire, trying to stop me before I reached the city limit. I was grateful for the restraint, as awkward as it was on my leg, as I frantically dodged Dracon fire. Gonrod ably provided cover fire – he was an excellent co-pilot, however reluctant he may have been to start.

Just as I reached Santa Barbara, an invisible presence above the tree-lined streets, the comms panel activated, and the face of Alloran-Semitur-Corass appeared on screen. But the menacing _djafid_ he radiated through the thought-speech comm-link was not Alloran’s. I knew the plain, forthright thought-speech voice of my _shorm_ anywhere.

«Mertil-Iscar-Elmand,» Visser Five said. «Or as your _shorm_ would say, Mertil of Dana Korra.»

My hands tightened on the controls. I said nothing, weaving invisibly between the skyscrapers of the human city. I refused to be distracted. With a stalk-eye, I saw Gonrod nearly vibrating with disgust beside me.

«Dana Korra,» Visser Five said slowly, savoring it. «She is a beautiful _Garibah_ , isn’t she?» He reached for something out of frame. When he leaned back into view, he was holding one pot in each arm, each holding a different tiny tree, one low and twisting, the other straight and glossy. I staggered, would have fallen if not for the restraint on my leg. 

CRRRRAAAAASSSHHHH!

I had hit a human building! Careened into one of the upper floors, sending a rain of glass into the street below. I corrected course, hoping against all hope I had not hurt any of the humans in the building. 

Meanwhile, Visser Five gloated, «Why, of course I would return to your little Earth refuge to collect your _uruthoul_ trees. They are a rare find! Previously unknown to Yeerks. The Andalite experts on my ship were _fascinated._ » He leaned in to the twisted, red-leaved _uruthoul_ of Theresh, inhaling deeply. «And the _smell_!»

My legs burned with bile, and I shuddered, vomiting down grass onto the floor of the bridge. Gonrod shoved me out of his way with his tail and slammed his hand down on the comms panel, cutting off the link. «Take weapons, Warrior Mertil,» he barked, and I pulled my leg out of the restraint and changed positions with him without protest.

Gonrod did not need me on weapons. He had internalized my strategy, and aimed the ship for a part of the harbor densely populated with boats. As he dove down into a gap between ships, rocking them with the waves of our descent, I gripped the weapons console, replaying over and over the sight of my carefully tended _uruthoul_ of Dana Korra tucked in the crook of Gafinilan’s arm, transformed forever into Alloran’s arm by Visser Five.

Gafinilan’s body. His beautiful, broken, _tzeraf_ body that was no longer Ixilan or _tzeraf_. No longer him at all, except on the inside. 

Gonrod let go of the controls as the Living Hive sucked the _Ralek River_ through the sewer and underground. He studied me. «I do not entirely understand what I just witnessed,» he said. «But I find some small piece of grief in me that sings with the larger grief in you.»

«Thank you,» I said woodenly, and tried to think of nothing at all. 

  


** Rachel **

«AAAAAAHHHHHHH!»

It took a scary long time to get my flight path under control, with the incredible backwash from the racing spaceship and the weight of the blue box throwing me off balance. I managed to get my wings straightened out just before I would have crashed into the tree canopy right at the southern edge of Los Padres.

«What time is it?» Jake said, out of nowhere.

«Day… time?» Loren guessed weakly. Yeah, the sun was up. That was the best I could do. But why did Jake care?

«Five past three,» Tobias said. «He’ll still be at the school.» He dipped a wing and turned toward our school.

Right. That was why it mattered. I was completely losing touch with the normal cycle of human life. We all raced toward the school. I fell toward the back, my wing muscles straining to carry the blue box. 

Kids were pouring out of the school building, shouldering their backpacks. But plenty were still there for after-school activities. Like theater. _Like gymnastics,_ Abineng said. 

«I’m calling Mr. Tidwell with private thought-speech,» Tobias said. «Obviously he can’t talk back, but – oh, thank _fuck_ he’s still here.»

«Rachel, Tobias,» Jake said. «Get in there, give him the morphing power, get him Tobias’s DNA, and get him out. _Fast_. We’ll keep a lookout.»

I had come around the school building. I could see him now, on his feet, sweat shining on his face. He’d closed the door to his classroom. «Mr. Tidwell! Open the window!» 

Mr. Tidwell scrambled to the windows and opened one. Tobias and I dove through with long practice, making Mr. Tidwell squeak and jump backward. As soon as I was clear of the window, I focused on my body, the way it felt when Tobias was in my head, beautiful and graceful and more real than any other form I could take. I grew heavy and crashed to the classroom floor between two desks, still clutching the blue box in my melting, fleshy talon. 

“What’s going on?” Mr. Tidwell demanded, high and nervous. He fidgeted his fish dæmon’s tank back and forth on its wheels, as she swam inside it in tight, dizzying circles. Demorph, demorph, I needed to _demorph._

«The Empire knows you’re a traitor,» Tobias said. «Melissa got captured and the Yeerk in her head managed to yell out a bunch of our secrets before she could be… stopped. We’re getting you out of here.»

Abineng popped into existence, knocking over a chair. Mr. Tidwell startled, looked down, and seemed to notice the blue box in my hand for the first time. “You… how? _What_?”

I got up and held out the box. “How do you think? Jogging out of here won’t cut it. Put your hand on the box and concentrate.”

Mr. Tidwell saw something in me and Abineng, some hint of how deadly fucking serious the situation was, and went sickly white. He put his hand on the morphing cube. He didn’t close his eyes, just stared into it as if it were a tank like the one just behind him, full of glowing blue water. “I feel… something,” he murmured.

“Tingly?” I said.

“Yeah.”

“Then it’s working. Good.” I heard footsteps and teenage chatter outside the door. Abineng paced as much as he could in the cramped spaces between desks. How long did it take? What if I took the box away too soon and he couldn’t acquire Tobias? What if –

BANG! The classroom door slammed open. 

What happened next, I’ve replayed in my head a million times. It all must have taken three seconds, but it played out in slow motion. Three girls my age charged into the Spanish classroom. They were all from my gymnastics team. The girl in the lead was Mary Chiang, stalking in with a red wildcat rushing in front of her. A girl whose mother died because I charged like an idiot into the TV station where she worked, throwing other people’s lives away to save my dad from the Yeerks. She had a Dracon beam, and lay down fire as she came in. TSEEEEWWW! A desk vaporized. TSEEEWWW! A poster of a city in Spain sizzled and disappeared as Mary charred a smoking hole in the wall. I grabbed Tidwell’s shoulder and spun him so that I was between him and the Dracon fire, without letting go of the box. Mary’s eyes locked on the blue box.

At the same time, Abineng leapt forward, and slammed down his front hooves into Shengkai, Mary’s wildcat dæmon. He yowled, and Mary staggered. Then Abineng lowered his head and speared him through with a horn. He exploded into Dust. Mary screamed like her heart was being torn out, and fell to the ground. Her Dracon beam fell from limp fingers.

I took the blue box, swung Kalysico’s tank by its straps onto my shoulder, and shoved Mr. Tidwell at Tobias. “Touch him and concentrate on him, just like you did on the box.” Mr. Tidwell stared at his dæmon in a tank on my back, staggering backward toward Tobias. I shouted, “Do you want them to do to her what I just did to that wildcat? TOUCH THE GODDAMN HAWK!”

One of the other teenage Controllers had the Dracon beam in her hand now. Their dæmons were nowhere to be seen, hiding inside their clothes probably. She pointed the Dracon beam at Mr. Tidwell. “Filthy traitor!”

I threw myself in front of the Dracon beam in a flying leap. It burned my left forearm clean off, sending me to the floor in agony. “Get up, Rachel!” Abi cried. There was a thunder of shouts and footsteps, more people coming into the classroom.

TSEEEEER! More Animorphs dove in through the open window. The Spanish classroom became a war zone. I grabbed onto Abi’s leg with the hand I had left and pulled myself to my feet, swaying and sweating. One of the teen Controllers gave a blood-curdling scream. Mr. Tidwell was locked in an acquiring trance with Tobias. I dropped Kalysico’s tank down under Abineng for cover, and focused on the eagle.

“What is going on in here?”

“Don’t worry, Mr. Feyroyan, we’ll get it under control.”

“There are wild birds in here! And a student with a laser gun! Put that down, Giselle!”

TSEEEEWWW!

«Ahhhh!»

“Give us the cube, traitor!”

Abineng charged at the Controller teacher’s ibis dæmon – it was Mr. Feng, the American history teacher – but she was too light on her feet, fluttering up, so that Abineng’s horns only smacked against her feet. Marco hit her by accident with a flailing wing as he flapped to stay up in the dead air of the classroom. Abi leapt up to take another stab at the dæmon, but I got too far into the morph and he disappeared.

«Mr. Tidwell, Illim, morph now!» Tobias said. «Focus on the hawk, imagine yourself becoming me! Rachel’s doing it right now, do what she does.»

“Become the hawk. Become the hawk,” Mr. Tidwell muttered. 

TSEEEWWWW! Jake fell at my feet, a wing burned half-off. I still had enough of an arm left to pick him up and throw him out the open window, where he could demorph out of the fight. 

“Ahhhh!” The Controller girl without a Dracon beam clutched at the bloody lines Tobias had scored across her face. Two boys in workout clothes with tennis rackets came in from the corridor, drawn by the screams and noise, and one of them cried out in fear and launched his screech owl dæmon at the melting, twisting mess of me. She screamed and ripped into me with beak and claws, and all I could do was just keep on morphing. Ax screeched and came down on the dæmon, grabbing her with his talons and throwing her away from me.

TSEEEEWWWW! Giselle, or whoever her Yeerk was, fired at the feathered form of Mr. Tidwell. He cried out in pain.

«Keep morphing, Mr. Tidwell!» Tobias said. «The damage will go away once you’re a hawk. _Focus_!»

“It hurts!” cried Kalysico from her tank.

Almost fully eagle, I screamed, «Somebody _stop them_!» I would have done it myself, but I had to protect the blue box, no matter what. I held it in my talons and got ready to move.

«It’s total insanity in here, we can’t get to battle morphs!» Marco said. He went for Giselle, claws out, but she shot through his tail, blasting a hole in the ceiling and forcing him out the window to demorph.

Mr. Feng dove at me, trying to grab the blue box, and I exploded up the ground, flapping as hard as I could. «Back off, you slimy son of a bitch! I’ll kill you!» 

_Oh, it feels_ good _to curse in front of a Yeerk,_ Abi said with total satisfaction. _They know we’re human. We can say “bitch” if we want to._

«Rachel, get out of here,» said Tobias. «They’re after the blue box. You need to get it to the Living Hive, _now_.»

Abineng hated the idea of leaving the others behind to defend Mr. Tidwell while I flew away. We had to protect them. But I told Abi silently that everything would go to hell if the Yeerks got the blue box, and I zoomed out the open window. Dracon fire followed me, vaporizing another window and singeing the end of my tail. I didn’t care. I was off and away. 

«Hey Jake,» I said. «How are we getting into the Living Hive?»

«Same way as the _Ralek River_ ,» Jake said grimly. «Through Santa Barbara Harbor.»

«I’m going to have to dive down there as an eagle, huh,» I said. I looked down. There were already Controllers rushing out of the school, firing Dracon beams up at us. One of them was a girl who called Cassie ugly once. I had a moment of wishing I could go back and poop on her, until I remembered that she was a Controller now, which was so much worse than bird poop in her hair. «This trip is going to suck.»

«It already does,» Jake said, as we dodged and sped away, splitting up to make ourselves harder targets for the Controllers below. There was a strange note in his voice.

«Look, if you’re going to say something to me, just say it,» I snapped.

«I wasn’t going to say anything,» Jake said.

«Good,» I said.

«Hurry!» Tobias shouted. «There’s reinforcements coming up from the Yeerk Pool!»

TSEEEEWWWWW!

«I’m going as fast as I can!» I shouted. I dipped a wing and turned a little to see two red-tailed hawks, a prairie falcon, an osprey, and a harrier flying away from the school like their asses were on fire, which was almost true for the Tidwell-hawk, who was easy to tell apart from Tobias’s total grace in the sky. 

«Oh God,» Tidwell said. «Oh god oh god oh god – » The pace kept building as he went. He was losing it. I couldn’t blame him. He just had his own students attack him. He just watched one of his former students kill another one of his students. He had just seen the Animorphs in action. But then the panic spiral stopped, and he went quiet.

Illim said, «I’m putting Julian in the backseat for now. He needs some time. Let’s go.»

«Rachel?» Tobias said privately. «You want me to have a turn with the box?»

«Yes,» I said, weak with relief. My brain was burning, my legs were burning from holding the box, my wings were burning from holding me up, everything inside and outside was on fire. Tobias swooped in close and grabbed the box in his talons. It was only when I felt his grip firm on the box that I let go.

Elhariel said, «Hey. When we get to the Hive. When we’re safe. If you want to… if you need me to… you know – »

« _No_ ,» said Abineng. I flew harder than ever toward the ocean, just to keep Tobias out of my sight. «No, El. I never want you to see that from the inside. To know what that’s like. _Never_. It’s poison. I won’t let it touch you.»

«If it’s poison for me,» Elhariel said, «then it must be poison for you. How are you supposed to get it out?»

I didn’t know how. All I knew was that I’d been strong enough to live with it since David. So what was just a little more? Wasn’t I strong enough to live with a blackened heart?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: vomit, gunfight in a school, child murder


	3. Six Nightmares

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content notes at the end, if you want them. 
> 
> You are here. Ah, you do not flee.  
> You will answer me until the last cry.  
> Curl against my side as if you were afraid.  
> Nevertheless, a strange shadow once ran across your eyes.  
> – Poema 14 by Pablo Neruda (my translation)

** James **

_ The van pulled into the parking lot, and the handicapped parking spots all had cars in them. I rolled down the window to ask one of them to move, like I’d seen nurses do when we got to go on a trip somewhere and the handicapped parking was taken by people who shouldn’t be there. _

_ There was a woman getting out of a car with no special parking tag. I leaned my head out the window. “Excuse me, ma’am,” I said.  _

_ The woman looked up at me. It was my mother. She curled her lip in contempt.  _

A hand on my shoulder, shaking me gently. “James. James, wake up.”

I woke up blearily. The sun was setting. We were still on the highway. The radio was on.

_ “…Attorney General issued a statement that investigations into the Sharing are still ongoing, and that he would not make any announcements about specific allegations until he has thoroughly reviewed the evidence. Back to our top news story about the rogue units of the California National Guard. Governor Hernandez’s claims of corruption and mutiny in the National Guard, dismissed by officials in her cabinet as exaggeration, gained shocking confirmation today when Captain Monaghan of the 160 _ _ th _ _ Infantry Regiment went AWOL along with…” _

“What’s going on?” Cleyr said sleepily, as I tried to get my dry mouth to work.

It was Kelly secured next to me in the back of the van. “You were having a nightmare,” she said quietly, and I realized that there were two other kids behind us, sleeping. “It looked shitty, so I woke you up.”

My face burned hot. How did she know? What did she see? Did I say something in my sleep? Then I remembered the nightmare, and then the real-life nightmare before that, and my face went nuclear when I realized my eyes were itching with tears. I stared at the floor in front of me where Cleyr was curled up, half-tucked under my wheelchair. Viradechtis crept along the floor toward her, one hairy leg at a time. 

“Hey,” Kelly said gently. “Hey. What is it?”

“It’s nothing,” I mumbled. “It’s just – Cassie the Animorph. She came to visit me in Bachu’s basement one night. I begged her to rescue Pedro and Lluvia and Houa from the hospital. _Begged_.” The word burned like bile in my throat. Kelly would know how much it hurt kids like us to beg for anything. “I thought they would. I really thought they would. I’m so fucking stupid.”

Viradechtis climbed up on Cleyr’s head and stroked her cheek with the tip of one leg. The deliberate, delicate touch of a spider. When Kelly spoke, it was the same way. “We can’t trust anyone else to care about us. Not even these Chee.” She glanced sideways at the reflection of the Chee driving the van in the rearview mirror. He didn’t react. “The only ones we can trust are those who know what it’s like to be us, from the inside. One way or another, James. We’re gonna get our Yeerks back.”

  


** Ax **

Strains of gentle _djafid_ drifted into my mind. «Aximili. It is time for your shift.»

I jerked awake with my hearts skittering like _djabala_ flushed from the nest. It was the sure sign of a disturbing dream, what humans call a nightmare. We do not remember our dreams, so I could only guess at the terrible visions my mind might have conjured for itself. The real world had challenges enough, for I was in the feeding ground of the _Ralek River_ with Estrid looking at me with her dark main eyes. Under her arm, she was holding the Andalite frequency transceiver, which played some kind of soothing _djafid_. I stared at it. Had Mertil lent it to her, or had she just borrowed it without asking?

She spoke again. «Mertil informed me that you have a shift guarding the humans.» She hefted the radio. «And allowed me a turn with this.» Her hand curled around it protectively. There was a sleeplessness in her eyes.

It was the first time I had heard Estrid use Mertil’s name instead of “the _vecol_.” I wanted to press her on it, but decided that would help Mertil not at all. So I simply turned my palm up in acknowledgment and left the _Ralek River_ , my pulse still rapid in my throat.

The human encampment was on what passed for high ground in the Living Hive, a shallow hill out of the muck of the ponds and tunnels, with an incomprehensible rock sculpture at its center. There was a portable scoop on the _Ralek River_ for shelter in case of a crash landing, but it did not fit all of the humans. The families with children were crowded into the empty quarters on the _Ralek River_. Some slept in the portable scoop. The remaining humans, including the Animorphs, slept in sleeping bags directly in the cool, slick mud.

Mertil stood watch over the sleeping humans, Shredder in hand. When his stalk eye fixed on me, I said, «Have there been any attacks?»

«A group of young ones,» Mertil said. «Or so I believe. I stunned them. A group of more disciplined Taxxons came to collect them after. They thanked me for my clemency.»

«They are our hosts,» I acknowledged, «if very flawed ones. I will attempt to do the same, should there come an attack on my shift.» I heard a slosh of mud, and stiffened into higher alert. But the Taxxon passed us placidly by and disappeared into a tunnel. Trying not to sound too eager, I asked, «How did you pilot the _Ralek River_ into the Hive? It must have been no mean feat.» I did not mention Estrid’s small concession to Mertil on the ship, or ask him why he had lent her the radio.

«The Blade Ship pursued us,» Mertil said flatly. The stump of his tail twitched. «The Visser came on screen to taunt me.»

«I thought the _Ralek River_ could block incoming Yeerk transmissions.»

«It can,» Mertil admitted, his upper back swaying miserably. «I did not. Gonrod had to do it for me.»

A weakness I could forgive, but I did not think saying so would help. 

Mertil’s thoughts flooded out of him like a river over a boulder. «He wears Alloran’s face now. He must have forced Gafinilan to acquire Alloran before he was killed. Soola’s disease must have sunk its claws too deep for him to be useful to the Visser anymore. Now he is trapped in morph as the Butcher of the Hork-Bajir.»

We had predicted this would happen. But it clearly hurt Mertil no less for that. «He is still your _shorm_ ,» I said. «Just as Tobias is still my _shorm_.» I wanted to touch my tail blade to his in sympathy, but could not.

«Do you have the mind-link?» Mertil said.

«The beginnings of the second stage,» I said. «I can sense his proximity. I think he can sense mine. But it is not precise.»

«There is one benefit to closing the mind-link to him,» Mertil said softly. «When he is in orbit and I am grounded, he feels so terribly far.»

My own tail twitched. Surely there must be some other way to show my fellow warrior that I grieved with him. I made the sign for “I am watching over you,” and tapped my front hoof against his. He startled, then settled and signed acknowledgment, his yellow-green eyes luminous in the glow of the Living Hive.

I held out my hand for the Shredder. «Go to sleep, Mertil.»

  


** Tidwell **

_ I looked into my students’ eyes, and I could see in their flat hostility that they knew my secret. I tried to think of something, anything to say to win their respect back, but Illim wasn’t with me, and my mind was frozen in panic. A terrible silence reigned in the classroom. _

_ Then a girl whipped out a Dracon beam from under her desk, pointed it at me, and yelled, “Die, traitor!” as her crow dæmon flew at me, screaming.  _

_ TSEEEEEWWWWW! _

I woke up gasping and sweating. For a moment I had no idea where I was or what had happened. I hadn’t had a nightmare in ages; Illim always wakes me up before they get too bad. But Illim wasn’t with me, and for an aching moment I had no idea why.

 _He’s in the Aftran Plisam Pool,_ Kalysico said, _and you’re in an Andalite tent in a Taxxon hive God knows how many feet under Santa Barbara._

I sat upright in my sleeping bag. _And you’re in an Andalite water bucket,_ I thought, looking down at her in a blue pail from the Andalite ship, _because…_

 _Because we had to leave my tank behind,_ Kalysico said quietly, and the whole horror show washed over me again. Holding onto the blue box and hoping desperately it would work. My students, running into my classroom and firing Dracon beams at me. Rachel, killing one of her classmates without even having to morph to do it, her face a pale grim mask. The girl’s scream as her caracal dæmon disintegrated. The desperate rush to morph as children and teachers fought and screamed all around me. In _my_ classroom. The place where I tried so hard to help students feel safe.

 _I didn’t even know her name,_ I thought. _She didn’t take Spanish._

 _Let’s go get Illim,_ Kaly said, and I picked up her bucket and stepped around the sleeping bodies in the tent as quietly as possible. Outside the tent, the Animorph Aximili stood watch over the exposed bodies of the human morphers in their sleeping bags. I didn’t ask him why. I’d heard the Taxxon attack earlier as I’d been trying to get to sleep. It hadn’t exactly helped me relax. I wanted to thank him, but I wasn’t sure if it would insult his Andalite honor or something. One of his stalk eyes fixed on me.

“Hi, Aximili,” I said awkwardly. “Could you tell me where the Aftran Plisam Pool is? I saw it earlier, but this place is so confusing…”

«It is in the shallow pool there,» Aximili said, pointing the way a human would. I saw the glint of metal in the red glow of the Living Hive. Of course, there were plenty of pools down here, but they weren’t balanced in the way Yeerks needed, so the Aftran Plisam Pool was still in its usual metal tub, though now with a cover over it to discourage any hungry Taxxons.

“Thank you,” I said, and rushed past him before I could worry too much about whether it would offend him or not. 

I waded through ankle-deep, glowing red muck to get to the edge of the Pool. I grimaced at the cold wet creeping up my socks. “We’re all gonna get trenchfoot living down here,” Kaly grumbled.

“Hello, Tidwell.” I jumped and turned around. There was an androgynous, tumble-haired teenager with a pit bull dæmon – not one of the refugees from Kref Magh, but the Chee-made SymbiontAI and a Yeerk.

“Hello, Sai,” I said, shortening the name the way the Yeerks had taken to doing. “Who’s with you right now?”

Sai smiled mysteriously and tapped a shiny silvery badge on the chest of their jumpsuit. “I added this to my hologram to show who’s with me right now. This means it’s Generation Freedom.”

The badge glowed. So did a silver collar on the pit bull’s neck. “This is Generation Freedom speaking now,” the Yeerk said.

“Huh,” I said. “That’s handy.” 

_Though honestly,_ Kaly said silently, _I kind of like it sometimes when the Animorphs are confused about whether it’s us or Illim talking._

“Wait,” I said suddenly. “How did you recognize me? You’re a poolie, aren’t you?”

“Illim showed me multi-sensory impressions of you, palp-to-palp,” Generation Freedom said. “He wanted to show you off, I think. He’s very fond of you.”

“Oh,” I said, and felt my face prickle and heat. “Say, uh, could you by any chance get Illim out of the Pool for me? I need to. Um.”

Sai’s light brown eyes twinkled a little in the strange red glow from the ground. “Of course.” They flicked some switches along the side of the Pool, and the cover retracted a little. They reached into the Pool, and stood there looking distant.

“Are you talking to them?” I said.

“Yes,” Sai murmured.

 _You could talk to them,_ Kaly said suddenly. _You could morph Yeerk, go in there, and talk to Illim in Yeerkish the way it’s supposed to be spoken. You could swim with him. See the Pool he and Firtips and Aftran built._ The thought was so overwhelming I shivered, even though the air was sticky-close in the Hive. I reached into the bucket and held my hand loosely around Kaly. 

“I have him,” Generation Freedom said. 

“I haven’t interrupted anything, have I?” I said, drumming my fingers nervously along Kaly’s lateral line. 

“He’s not complaining in the least,” Generation Freedom said, and they held out a dripping hand with Illim in the palm. I took him, felt grounded by his slick soft weight, and cradled him to my ear. The pressure of him inside was a relief. I opened my mind to him. Embraced him. Let the Pool sludge drip from my wet hand into Kaly’s bucket.

«Oh, Julian,» Illim said, when he touched the memory of my nightmare. «I’m so sorry. I should have been there.»

«You had important things to do,» I said. «Everyone in the Pool must be panicking. They almost got killed. Or worse.»

«I have a responsibility to you, too,» Illim said, soothing away all the little hurts of the nightmare: the tension in my neck, the backache from tossing and turning in my sleeping bag. 

“Thank you,” I said distractedly to Sai and Generation Freedom, waving goodbye vaguely as I stumbled out of the grimy water surrounding the Aftran Plisam Pool. I was still wearing my nice brogues I’d worn to school yesterday, and they were unsteady on the slippery ground.

«I never wanted it to come to that,» Illim said. «I never wanted you to be in the crossfire. You’re not a soldier. You’re a teacher.»

«You’re not a soldier either,» Kaly pointed out. «But here we are.»

I felt Illim’s dissatisfaction. It had been worse for me. It had been my students, my classroom. It had been my body melting and twisting into a hawk shape while Dracon beams sizzled all around me. But Illim had felt my shock and terror, every moment of it.

When I got back to the human encampment, Rachel was sitting up in her sleeping bag, leaning against Abineng’s lowered head. There were deep dark circles under her closed eyes. When he heard my footsteps, Abi tilted his head a little toward me, and his dark, fringed eye stared into me. I held Kaly’s bucket to my chest, and might have forgotten to breathe if not for Illim.

«Say something, Julian,» he said. «I think they need you to say something. She did all of that to protect you from a fate worse than death.»

What was there to say to a girl who killed one of her classmates today?

“Rachel,” I said, in a voice hoarse with silence. “I am so, so sorry for what you had to do today.”

She raised a hand to grip at Abi’s stiff mane. Her eyes squeezed tightly shut. “Her name,” she ground out, “was Mary Chiang. Her dæmon’s name was Shengkai.” 

I couldn’t bear to watch her suffering anymore. I scurried into the tent and stepped carefully over Robin and Miguel. Kaly’s bucket I set near the head of my sleeping bag, then I crawled inside.

«Please, Illim. Please don’t let me dream this time.»

  


** Rachel **

_ “Fluffer,” Melissa whispered. “Thank you for staying with me. Thank you for looking out for me.” What she didn’t say: no one else was looking out for her. _

_ I purred and nuzzled closer to her. She scratched between my ears. Warmth flooded me. She was my friend.  _

_ «That’s right, Melissa,» I said, rubbing my cheek against her chest. «I’m looking out for you. You won’t have to suffer anymore.» And I bared my teeth and tore her throat out, purring like an engine all the while. _

I sat bolt upright in my sleeping bag. I was at the edge of the pile of sleeping Animorphs in sleeping bags. Abineng stood over me. _Ax is watching,_ he said in my mind. _There’s no threat._

 _No threat except me,_ I thought, leaning exhaustedly into Abineng’s lowered head. I closed my eyes and went into four-eye. Through Abi’s far-apart eyes, I could see almost all the way around. Ax, watchful, Shredder in hand. Emeraude’s looming silhouette on the other side of the little hill. Cassie’s sleeping bag, empty – I was too tired to even wonder why. Coming up the hill toward me: Mr. Tidwell, holding a bucket for his fish dæmon. When he saw me and Abi, he gasped a little and held the bucket to his chest.

Abi whispered all of the things Mr. Tidwell was going to say. _How could you do that? How can you live with yourself? When did you learn to be like this? Do you even know her name?_

Instead, he said, “Rachel, I am so, so sorry for what you had to do today.”

I squeezed my eyes tight against the tears. I couldn’t cry in front of Mr. Tidwell. I had done it for him. I was his protector. I answered the question he didn’t ask. I somehow needed to prove to him that I didn’t kill some nameless girl who was nothing to me. “Her name was Mary Chiang. Her dæmon’s name was Shengkai.”

That spooked him. He scrambled away. I waited until Abi couldn’t see him anymore, then wiped my face with the back of my hand and opened my eyes.

“Ax,” I whispered. “Where’s Tobias?”

«Asleep in the feeding area of the _Ralek River,_ last I saw him,» Ax said. «We thought he might be too…» His eyes swept over the reddish dimness of the Living Hive, where Abi could see vague wormlike shapes moving in and out of the mud. «Tempting. Out here in the open.»

“And Cassie?”

«She went to the _Ralek River_ as well, ten of your minutes ago. I do not know why.» A pause, one eyestalk held still, pointing backward. «You may ask her yourself. She is coming back.»

I blinked up at Cassie sleepily as she came into sight. “Cassie?”

Quincy flew ahead and grabbed onto one of Abi’s horns, hanging upside down. _Quincy is truly a marvel of the world,_ Abi thought. _He knows what I just did with this horn and still…_

Cassie waved hi to Ax. He waved hi back with his hand not holding the Shredder. I would have laughed if I wasn’t so exhausted. She knelt at the other end of my sleeping bag and whispered, “You know, back when we found that Andalite toilet at Zone 91, I never thought I’d actually have to use one.”

This time, I did laugh, despite everything. Without Abineng for support, my face would have fallen down in the mud. I shook all over with it. I didn’t even really notice when it changed into sobs, not until Cassie started petting my shoulder and humming softly, like she does with sick animals.

“Have you…” Cassie said softly. “You know, with Tobias?”

I sat up straighter, not leaning on Abineng anymore, and shook my head fiercely. “ _No_. Never. Nobody needs a front-seat view of – ”

“Rachel, she might not know,” Abi said. “She wasn’t there. She was with the Chee.”

Cassie bit her lip. “I know your friend died.”

“Melissa’s not my friend,” I said. “She doesn’t – I think she kind of hated me.” And why not, when Jake had tortured her dad, and I had walked away and let him do it? “My responsibility. I taught her to fight. But it wasn’t enough.”

“It could happen to any of us. You know that.” Cassie studied me in that way she has, like her dad diagnosing one of his patients. “You didn’t see her die. That’s not what you’re afraid Tobias will see.”

I gripped Abi’s mane with one hand and a fistful of sleeping bag with the other. I could barely look at Cassie. She was still stroking my shoulder and making soft little sounds like I was a nervous horse. “You remember. When we rescued my dad.”

Cassie hummed agreement. “Which part?”

“When the camera lady sacrificed herself to save me,” I said. A tiny woman with an insect dæmon lanyard around her neck, who threw herself at a sniper. For me, when I put a whole studio’s worth of lives at risk just for my stupid little-girl dream of saving my dad.

“She called out to you,” Cassie said, prompting.

“The last thing she did,” I gritted out, “was beg me to save her daughter. Mary Chiang. We used to do gymnastics together. I killed her today. At the school.” I cried. It was ugly. Snot poured down my face. My mouth forced out sounds like I was choking or coughing up bile. I hoped with everything I had that Ax was ignoring all of this. 

Cassie spoke. “She was attacking you?” Delicately, as if probing a wound.

“No,” I gasped out through tears. “Tidwell.”

“Rachel,” she said. “You can’t protect everyone. None of us can. We don’t even try.”

The tears had too much of a grip on me to even speak. Instead, Abi said, agonized, “I _promised._ ”

“You _didn’t_. I was there, Rachel.”

“I promised _myself_ ,” Abi said. “Do you know why I decided to put my life and my sanity on the line every goddamn day, Cassie? I never had any big noble principles about saving the Earth. I saw Melissa crying herself to sleep because her parents didn’t love her anymore, and I said to Rachel, _no_. The Yeerks aren’t allowed to do this to kids. Promise me you won’t let them do this to any more kids. Kids like Melissa. Kids like Mary.”

“Oh, _Abi,_ ” Quincy said, hanging from his horn. “You think that’s not _noble_?” Cassie’s breath punched out of her. Her eyes shone. She threw her arms around me. Pulled me close. We rocked together, back and forth, holding each other. We did that for a long time.

When I finally started to nod off to sleep, I caught sight of Jake in his sleeping bag, the weird red algae stuff reflecting off the whites of his eyes. I didn’t even have to wonder what was keeping my cousin awake tonight. 

  


** Tom **

_ I was carving bark from a low, stout branch when I saw a flash of hrala in the silvery moonlight: Delareyne, running fleet-foot on the forest floor below. I instantly dropped to the ground and ran after her, awkward, a creature made for climbing trying to outpace a creature made for running. “Del!” I screamed, in my human boy voice, not my Hork-Bajir rumble. “Del, wait!” _

_ “Tom,” said Del with the voice of a female Hork-Bajir, still running. “Get help.” _

_ “I can help you if you just stop!” I yelled.  _

“Tom. Wake up. We need you!”

I woke up. It wasn’t my dæmon talking, but Kel Geta, the nurse. She was up in my roosting tree, a vortex of _hrala_ in the fresh morning air. “Call the shape-changers with brain-speech,” she said in Hork-Bajir. “The new-frees go mad as their Yeerks die. We have no medicine to calm them. No safe place where they can scream until they feel better. We need help.” Her eyes were crusted green around the edges, a sign of too little sleep. I felt the same crust on my own eyes as I came to. 

Normally I would have tried to speak in Hork-Bajir, but I was too tired to remember the right words. «They might not be near enough,» I said, «but I will try.» I reached out to the morphers assigned to our band. «Wepa? Uklan? Can you hear me?»

«Yes,» said Wepa, though it was faint.

«We could use your help. The Gold Bands you caught last night are going through a bad time. You know, the fugue.»

A pause. Kel Geta watched me expectantly. Not too far away, I heard a growl and a ragged Hork-Bajir moan of agony. The impact of swinging blade on blade. I flinched. The new-frees were making way too much noise; we’d have to leave and make a new camp before we caught too much attention. 

Wepa said, «Toby says we must free more, now.»

«Tell Toby,» I said, trying to hold back my anger, «that it’s pointless to catch more Gold Bands if we can’t take care of them once their Yeerks are dead.»

Another pause, then: «I come back. Uklan stays with Toby.»

I passed on to Kel that Wepa was coming, then said, «Is there some other way I can help?» I would have liked to help the new-frees – I’ve been there, after all – but so far I’ve found that there’s still too big a culture gap for me to say and do the right things.

Kel said, “One of the new-frees is very weak. Bring him water and new twigs. Wash dirt from his closing wounds. I will tend to others.” 

“I can do that,” I managed to say.

 _You can’t,_ said Delareyne. _You need to sleep. You barely got any –_

CRASH. A branch falling. An angry roar. _We would have to wake up and move anyway. Let’s go._

I broke off some new twigs from my roosting tree and followed Kel through dew-damp evergreens to a young new-free covered in the livid green slashes of closing wounds. His eyes were open, but he didn’t seem to see us. His swift, snapping _hrala_ showed that he wasn’t comatose or brain-dead, though, so I waved the new twigs in front of his face, and his amber eyes focused on them. Delareyne looked at the wounded boy and thought of Jake, who could be dying somewhere, and we couldn’t help him. Not that we had ever been able to help him. “Eat,” I said, gently placing one in the new-free’s mouth. 

I coached him through eating, even as some kind of way-too-loud struggle went down nearby. I tried to ignore it. After it went quiet, I got up to fill a bark-bowl with water from a tiny creek, and I overheard Wepa and Kel splashing water to clean themselves of green blood while they talked. Wepa said, “Ten dead since we left home. Ten new-frees, also.”

“Ten new-frees Elgat and her circle cannot help,” Kel said.

“Ten fewer enslaved Hork-Bajir chasing us,” Wepa countered.

I carried the water to the new-free and poured it slowly into his mouth. There was a light in his eyes now, but he still didn’t speak or acknowledge me. Kel called out to me. “Help him move. Wepa found a new place for us. She thinks the Yeerks are close.”

I tugged the new-free into a climbing position against the tree trunk. He moved with me, but one of his wounds reopened, and he whimpered. I said, “I don’t know if he can move.”

“He moves,” Kel said softly, “or he dies now, so he will not be a slave again.”

“All right, buddy,” I said to my charge in English. “I guess it’s time to move.”

  


** Eva **

I woke with sweat cooling on my skin and a dry fuzz in my mouth. It was still night-cycle on the ship, the day-lamps dark in my quarters. 

«You were having a nightmare,» Aftran explained.

“I don’t remember it,” said Mercurio, looking at me over the side of the bed.

«Good. I woke you up in time.» 

I didn’t ask her what it had been, even though she would know. _At this rate,_ Mercurio said, _she’s going to end up knowing you better than I do._ I rolled out of bed, wide awake and angry about it. I always got headaches on fewer than seven hours of sleep. Mercurio warned, _Don’t take it out on Aftran,_ so I decided to take it out on somebody else. I staggered to my terminal and pinged my personal assistant.

_ Any news? _

One minute. Two minutes. Trafit had been asleep, then. I grinned, and Aftran sighed, _Schadenfreude doesn’t suit you._

“I think it suits her fine,” Mercurio said, and the terminal pinged.

_ The Living Hive inoculation arrived an hour ago. I am sorry, I didn’t know you were awake, or I would have informed you immediately. _

“Well,” I said. “At least this sleepless night isn’t a _total_ waste.”

_ Show me. _

I got dressed and met Trafit outside our quarters. Their translucent eyelids blinked slowly and gummily. Aftran was right: I shouldn’t take pleasure in tormenting Trafit, not when their host was suffering too. But I’d spent enough time enjoying Edriss’s suffering, even when it meant I suffered too, that I couldn’t help but get a thrill anyway.

“I’ve updated your chip with access to the designated storage bay,” Trafit said through the tablet.

Aftran took over. “How robust is the Living Hive to other microbiomes? Or vice versa? Do I need to decontaminate my host before going in?”

“Some hosts exhibit allergies to the fungal components of the Living Hive,” Trafit said. “Be alert for signs of allergic reaction in your host and seek medical attention if you need it. As for the reverse – starting strains of the Hive are vulnerable to invasion by other microbes, until they come into equilibrium with their associated Taxxons, so take the face mask hanging by the door.”

There was a creepy filter face mask in a plasteel case by the entrance to the storage bay. I put it on and felt like a horror movie villain. “Dismissed, Trafit,” I said, muffled by the mask.

«So,» I said. «How do you know so much about microbiomes, Aftran?»

«All Yeerks do,» Aftran said, a little surprised. «It’s a component of our basic training on maintaining Pool health and purity standards.»

 _Right,_ Mercurio thought. _That is a particular preoccupation of theirs._ The first time I was infested, I threw up on the infestation pier in reflexive disgust, and a million alarms went off in the Pool as my vomit dripped down into the Pool sludge. I was too busy freaking out at the time to understand why, but afterward Edriss had a lot of paperwork to sign about Pool decontamination procedures.

The lights were dim inside the storage bay for the ship’s night-cycle, which let me see the reddish bioluminescence in the hot-tub-sized tank. It was like interconnected neurons in a brain, mold warping old bread, and weeds pushing through the cracks of a sidewalk, all overlapping each other in the water, glowing as if with heat. I was just tall enough to tip my masked chin over the edge of the tank and look down.

«IS SOMEBODY THERE?» The thought-speech voice was huge, but thin somehow, a shrill voice bleating in a vast, echoing cathedral.

“Yaaahhh!” I screamed inside the mask. I jolted backward and almost tripped over Mercurio. I steadied myself on the side of the tank. «Right. It talks. The Animorphs told me that already. It’s a dæmon for Taxxons. Kind of.»

«Let me try,» Aftran said. She rested my chin on the edge of the tank again and called out with my mouth in Galard: “Do you understand me?”

«HELLO? IS SOMEBODY HERE? WHERE AM I?»

So much for that. As I leaned back and racked my brain for ideas, Aftran said, «I have an idea, but you won’t like it.»

«Try me. My standards hit rock bottom ages ago.»

«Remember that time I morphed Edriss in your skull and you tore me a new one?»

«Right,» Mercurio said. «You could thought-speak to the Hive and nobody would know any morphing was going on.»

«Ugh, fine,» I said. «It’s only the fourth weirdest thing to happen this rane.»

There was a blissful moment of disconnection when Mercurio and I were alone in our heads. Then she was back. «Does she feel like Edriss at all?» I asked Mercurio.

«No,» Mercurio said firmly. «It’s still just Aftran.»

«I SENSE NEW AIR CURRENTS AND LIFE-PLUMES. SOMEONE IS HERE. WHY WILL NO ONE TELL ME WHERE THEY HAVE TAKEN ME?»

I pressed my hand against the side of the tank. It was a useless gesture – the Living Hive couldn’t possibly sense it, and I was nowhere near stupid enough to try to reach into the murky water in the tank and contaminate the ember-red filaments of the Hive with my hand germs. But the Hive sounded afraid, and it had done nothing wrong, so some part of me wanted to reach out. Aftran said, «Can you hear me? What is your name?»

«HOW CAN I KNOW MY NAME WHEN I DO NOT KNOW WHERE I AM?»

That brought both of us up short. «We took it from its home,» Mercurio realized. 

«We ordered the Living Hive here like something from a catalog,» I said. «We never even considered what it would mean. What is this farce of playing Visser One _doing_ to me?»

«We are on a spaceship,» Aftran said. «The Pool Ship of Earth.»

«WHAT IS A SPACESHIP?»

«They didn’t tell it anything,» Mercurio said softly. «It didn’t know where it was going.»

«Like it was just freight,» I thought numbly.

Aftran’s usual cynicism retreated. She said carefully, «It is how the Yeerks came to your world. How the Taxxons leave your world to go to other places.»

«THE TUNNELERS THROUGH THE SKY. YOU MEAN – I AM IN THE SKY.» It said that the way a human might say, “I’m in the Chernobyl exclusion zone,” or “I’m a hundred feet down a mineshaft,” sick with dread. It spoke again, panicked and trembly. Its bioluminescence flared and flickered, like wind over hot coals. «ARE THERE ANY TAXXONS HERE? WHERE ARE THEY? I NEED THEM!»

«Eva, what do I do?» Aftran demanded. «This Hive is about to lose it!»

«Ask it about where it came from,» I said. «Get it talking about something familiar.»

Aftran said, «There are Taxxons on this spaceship. You will meet them soon. Why don’t you tell me about where you came from?»

«I BUDDED OFF OF IRON MARSH HIVE. THERE IS IRON IN THE SEDIMENT THERE, AND BLANKETS OF CLOUDGREEN WITH MANY LONG ROOTS. IRON MARSH HIVE SENT ME AND TWENTY OF VER TAXXONS TO OUR YEERK PROTECTORS. BUT WE WERE SEPARATED! I DON’T KNOW WHERE THEY ARE! I AM ALONE!»

«Budded off,» Aftran echoed in my head.

«Aftran,» I said, horrified. I clutched at the edge of the tank for support. «This is a new Living Hive. A young one. It’s like a little child.» A thousand memories of holding Marco and Diamanta welled up. I looked down into the tank and tried to find something familiar there. It was like a Taxxon dæmon, wasn’t it? Like little Dia, turning into a tadpole and splashing around with Mercurio in the bathtub while I washed Marco. But I couldn’t find anything childlike in something that looked like a radioactive hot tub that hadn’t been cleaned in years. 

«We’ve seen so many strange things, Eva,» Mercurio said. «Free Hork-Bajir who saved us from falling to drown in the ocean. Marco, made God’s own soldier for freedom. A Yeerk who morphs you so much it’s become almost normal. It _has_ to be possible that a pile of wet mold could be a scared child!»

«This is a child,» Aftran mused, sending me an image of a Yeerk grub, tiny and wriggling. «So is this.» Marco as a squashed newborn. 

«Read me,» I told Aftran. My breath was loud inside the filter mask. «I know how to do this. Say what I would say.»

«You’re not alone,» Aftran said. «I am here. I will help you. I want you to be safe.» I could have believed she had been a minder in the Yeerk creches all her life. But she had drawn it all from me. The echo of it in her, borrowed, made the hairs on the back of my neck prickle up, for just a moment, before Aftran smoothed them back down.

«IRON MARSH HIVE SAID I HAD TO GO,» the Hive said miserably. I could hear the wobble where the baby Hive couldn’t quite keep up the huge, echoing quality of ver voice. «VE SAID I HAD A VERY IMPORTANT JOB. ALL THE TAXXONS WHO LEAVE FOR YEERK PROTECTION HAVE NO HIVE. BUT I COULD BE THE FIRST HIVE TO LEAVE HOME WITH THEM AND BE THEIRS.»

«Iron Marsh Hive was right,» Aftran said, pulling on a memory of the time Marco asked me how to be a good friend. «You could do something very important for the Taxxons on this spaceship. But first, you have to feel safe and comfortable. Is there something I can do to help?»

The young Hive spoke in the closest thing ve could to a whisper. «I AM SCARED OF THE SKY. IT IS EMPTY AND DRY AND SO OPEN. AM I SAFE INSIDE THIS TUNNELER?»

Mercurio hid his face against my hip. Ve wasn’t safe on the Pool ship. Of course ve wasn’t. But if ve died here, it would be because of the war, not because of an engineering failure in the ship.

«The Pool ship has thick walls,» Aftran said. «They keep the sky out and all of us in here, where it’s warm and there’s plenty of water. If a wall should break, alarms go off, and an emergency force field goes up to protect us until someone can come fix it.»

«THE SKY-TUNNELER IS SAFE.»

«Yes,» Aftran lied, and I could feel the echo of my misery in her. 

«ALL RIGHT. THEN MY NAME IS SKY HIVE. AND YOU ARE NOT A TAXXON, BUT YOU ARE MY QUEEN.»

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: child murder (surreal, in a dream), child neglect / abuse
> 
> @kaaramel drew [amazing fanart](https://kaaramel.tumblr.com/post/639244841998483456/i-sense-new-air-currents-and-life-plumes-someone) of Sky Hive and you should like and reblog it.


	4. Three Meals in the Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I’m doing a balancing act with a stack of fresh fruit  
> in my basket. I love you. I want us both to eat well."  
> \- "[OUR BEAUTIFUL LIFE WHEN IT’S FILLED WITH SHRIEKS](https://www.rattle.com/our-beautiful-life-when-its-filled-with-shrieks-by-christopher-citro/)" by Christopher Citro

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content notes at the end, as usual.

Chee Operating System v18941.0.0 (Branch: Pulim-dev)

System Log 

Instantiation: MIFDQDG01J CHEE-BACHU (ALIAS: Wena Shih and Yama)

  


> session.time()

8:05 PM PST

  


**CHEE-EXNIS**

It’s past time we pulled over for food. We’re almost out of protein bars for the kids, and we’re far enough out of Tijuana to be reasonably safe.

  


**CHEE-ALEM**

For now, anyway.

  


**CHEE-NAXES**

None of these roadside joints look wheelchair-accessible.

  


**CHEE-EXNIS**

It’s cooled down enough that they can just hang out in the parking lot and we bring the food out to them. We just have to make sure not to get anything too spicy – at least half the kids have GI issues.

  


**CHEE-BACHU**

Come on, there’s enough gringo tourists here that everyone makes mild food. Pull over here, this one looks open.

  


_We pull over by the fluorescent lights and wooden planks of a roadside bar and grill. It’s open to the night air and spills out the smell of hot tortillas, the blare of Santana playing from a stereo system, and the shimmering glow of_ hrala. _The children in the back who are awake cheer at the sight of it._

  


**CHEE-NAXES**

It’s beautiful, isn’t it?

  


**CHEE-NAXES**

The way the restaurant is different from the road is different from the sky is different from us and the children. Even the food has that Kolumatiy glow, because they put their intention into crafting it.

  


**CHEE-NAXES**

I’ll take the kids’ orders.

  


**CHEE-EXNIS**

I’ll disembark them from the vans. 

  


**CHEE-BACHU**

I’ll help you, Exnis.

  


**CHEE-IMALA**

Do you mind sharing your location with me? I’m based out of Baja California right now, and I’d like to meet you.

  


**CHEE-BACHU**

Why? I thought everyone was going down to the Pemalite ship to hide from the Yeerks.

  


**CHEE-IMALA**

You’re not. And now that I’ve tried out the Pulim-dev branch, neither am I. At least for now. Living down there cut off from the rest of the Kolumatiy - I’m not sure I can bear it.

  


**CHEE-BACHU**

[Attached file: ‘MeddlersCurrentLocation.text’]

  


_I get out from the passenger’s side of the van and slide open the back. I hold back my true strength, helping the boy Julio down from the van the way a human would. His hedgehog dæmon, Ismelda, stands up in his lap and strains her senses._

  


Incoming voice connection (language analysis: Spanish)

## I think I hear kids shouting out there. ##

  


> external.speakers.activate(message = ‘There are. They appear to be three siblings. I think they’re curious about you.’)

  


Incoming voice connection (language analysis: Spanish)

## Can I go talk to them? ##

  


> external.speakers.activate(message = ‘I don’t see why not. We’re far enough from the Grash Akdap Pool and all the power concentrated there that the risk of a random child being infested is very low.’)

  


_Julio wheels toward the kids. I help Tricia down from the van. Naxes comes around and helps her figure out which foods from the restaurant would work best with her diet. I help to massage the mucus out of Kelly’s lungs, and while she coughs, her tarantula dæmon tells me how much she misses her Yeerk, Margoth, and her friend, Lluvia, who got left behind at the children’s hospital._

  


**CHEE-IMALA**

I’m on my way, though you’ll probably have moved on by the time I get there. Where are you headed?

  


**CHEE-ALEM**

That’s a very good question, isn’t it. Where are we headed, besides “away from the Yeerk Empire’s influence”?

  


**CHEE-BACHU**

Do we know any helpful humans in Mexico?

  


**CHEE-EXNIS**

None who are still alive. Except… well. I played Marco a few times, and I do happen to know his grandparents are still alive and well out here. I don’t suppose you could get their address.

  


**CHEE-BACHU**

Exnis, we have burned our bridges with the Guardians of the Galaxy.

  


**CHEE-EXNIS**

You made contact with Pulim for a few minutes for the sake of saving these kids. Surely you can do the same with Eva and Aftran.

  


> comm.external(encryption = ‘maximum’, language = ‘Spanish’, priority = ‘medium’, recipient = ‘PoolShipExecutiveQuarters’, message = ‘Call me when you have a chance. The disabled children infested by your Sharing initiative need your help.’)

  


**CHEE-LARIX**

Is this some kind of Pulim-dev branch CheeOS support group? Can I join?

  


**CHEE-EXNIS**

Fine, fine. We’ll make it a support group. But if you come, you have to promise to help us with these kids. There’s four of us and sixteen of them, and they need a lot of support. We’re barely keeping up.

  


_Naxes and Alem come out of the restaurant with a tray of steaming dishes and a folding table. The fluorescent light from the open front of the roadside grill just barely reaches the parking lot, and Alem sets up the table in gray half-shadow. Cars whoosh by from time to time on the nearby highway. As Naxes serves up the food, James wheels up to the table and says, “We’re going to need another one. And Timmy and Ray need help with their food. And most of us need to take our meds with dinner.”_

  


_I swell with helplessness and inadequacy. James is much better at taking care of his people than we are._

  


Incoming encrypted connection (language analysis: Spanish)

## Damn you, Bachu. You know exactly how to grab my attention. What do you want? ##

  


> comm.external(encryption = ‘maximum’, language = ‘Spanish’, priority = ‘medium’, recipient = ‘PoolShipExecutiveQuarters’, message = ‘I’m on the run with a group of chronically ill children who were formerly infested and are now on the run from the Empire. You may know them as the Campsite Rule. We’ve hopped the border to Mexico and don’t know where to go. It occurred to us that you have roots here.’)

  


Incoming encrypted connection (language analysis: Spanish)

## So you’re bringing my parents into this. Bachu, you could bring the Yeerk Empire to their doorstep. Hasn’t my family been broken enough by this war? ##

  


> camera.capture(focus = ‘panoramic’, title = ‘DinnerInTheDark’)

> comm.external(encryption = ‘maximum’, language = ‘Spanish’, priority = ‘medium’, recipient = ‘PoolShipExecutiveQuarters’, attachment = ‘DinnerInTheDark.image’)

  


Incoming encrypted connection (language analysis: Spanish)

## Go to hell, Bachu. ##

[Attached file: ‘MamaPapiAddress.text’]

[Attached file: ‘MensajePorMamaPapi.sound’]

  


_Collette eats her pozole con mole while her waxwing dæmon, Taurim, hops around restlessly on the table. I serve out more food on the table, and help Timmy with his tortilla soup while Jia Jia curses the lack of adaptive cutlery. I can see the children humming in appreciation at the flavors, though, which have to be a revelation after a lifetime of hospital food. Not that I truly have a sense of taste; I just know from my chemical sensors that the smells of this food are far more complex than any hospital food I’ve ever encountered. Taurim finally bursts out:_

  


Incoming voice connection (language analysis: English)

## Where are we going? We can’t just ride around in vans forever! ##

  


_Jia Jia dives at Taurim and pretends to sting him._

  


Incoming voice connection (language analysis: English)

## Fine, fine, stop it, Jia Jia. What I mean is, it’s not that we’re not grateful for you saving our asses and everything. But all this traveling is rough. ##

  


> external.speakers.activate(message = ‘We still have to travel a while longer. We’re heading south, to where the Animorph Marco’s grandparents live.’)

  


**CHEE-NAXES**

So she sent you the address?

  


**CHEE-BACHU**

And a proof-of-life message. I hope it includes an explanation of what we are; they’ll process it more easily, coming from her.

  


**CHEE-IMALA**

Do you really need to reveal yourselves to even more humans? I certainly don’t want to talk about my experiences to humans who won’t understand.

  


**CHEE-BACHU**

Our story makes absolutely no sense if we don’t tell them everything. What rational reason is there for us to skip the country with a bunch of hospitalized children? To say nothing of Eva’s story.

  


**CHEE-IMALA**

I have to admit you have a point. However, I will still refrain from revealing myself to any humans once I join you at your destination.

  


**CHEE-LARIX**

Me too. Showing ourselves to humans has brought us nothing but trouble.

  


_The children whisper the news excitedly to each other. Some seem angry. It makes sense; if the Animorphs hadn’t abandoned them at the Sharing headquarters, they wouldn’t be in this situation. Finally, James leans over the table toward me and says:_

  


Incoming voice connection (language analysis: English)

## Are you sure they’ll want to help us? ##

  


> external.speakers.activate(message = ‘No, James. We are not at all sure. But there is nothing left to us but to take a chance.’)

  


**Eva**

I took the feed bag of Taxxon dirt from Trafit, and nearly staggered from the weight of it. Their hands freed, Trafit gestured over their tablet and said, “You do not need to take on such a menial task yourself. I can attend to the Hive’s feeding.”

“This is _my_ project, Trafit,” I said. “I’ll bring people in when I decide it’s good and ready. Which Taxxon-Controller do you have on call?”

“I thought,” Trafit said, pursing their lips cautiously, “it might be best to start with a cooperative Taxxon with no Yeerk. Yiissraass is an excellent teacher and disciplinarian to Taxxons fresh from the homeworld, but sie suffers badly in performance reviews because of the Hunger. I thought sie might be an appropriate test subject.”

«Damn if they aren’t right about that,» Aftran conceded.

“Remain on standby,” I said. “I will inform you if I think the Hive is ready for the test subject.”

I could see the moment when Trafit thought about questioning me. From their perspective, I knew relatively little about Taxxons, and all I’d done last time I’d come to visit Sky Hive was stare into ver tub, saying nothing. Now I was back, again on a quiet shift during night-cycle, to feed the Hive personally. I must have appeared obsessed or mad, ignoring any input from Taxxon-Controllers aboard the ship. But in the end, they said nothing, and I put on the filter mask and stepped into the storage bay, hauling the feed bag behind me. I had to prop it up by the side of the tank to keep it from tipping over.

«IS THAT YOU, MY QUEEN?» said Sky Hive.

A blissful moment of freedom as Aftran morphed Edriss. Then: «Yes. It’s me.»

«I REALIZED I DO NOT KNOW YOUR NAME,» Sky Hive said, «EVEN THOUGH YOU HELPED ME FIND MINE.»

My breath was much too loud inside my filter mask. I felt very small in the dimness of this room, lit only by the low night-cycle lamps, the bioluminescence of the Hive, and the glowing exit sign over the door.

«Decision time,» Aftran told me. «If we want Sky Hive as an ally when the virus hits, ve’s going to have to know who we are and what we believe, sooner or later. Do you want to lie to this lost child?»

«Of course not,» I thought. «But can we trust a lost child to keep a secret?» I remembered the times Marco innocently blurted out a secret – the gift he saw me wrapping for Peter, the embarrassing poison ivy rash Peter got on his ass from a hike in the woods.

«Sky Hive,» Aftran said carefully. «Have you ever had an enemy?»

Sky Hive’s filaments pulsed a darker red. «YES! IRON MARSH HIVE’S ENEMY IS DEEPWELL HIVE. THEY DON’T HAVE ENOUGH TADPOLES IN THEIR NURSE WELL, SO THEY RAID IRON MARSH HIVE TO STEAL VERS!»

«Good,» Aftran said. «So you understand what it means that your queen has enemies on board this ship. My name is a secret, because my enemies would use it against me.»

«YOU ARE MY QUEEN!» Sky Hive roared. «I WOULD NEVER GIVE AWAY YOUR SECRET NAME!»

«Are you sure you could keep it from everyone?» Aftran pushed. «Even your Taxxons?»

Sky Hive had no reply to this. Ver glow faded. 

«This is sick,» Mercurio thought. «We’ve compelled ver loyalty to us just because we’re the first ones off-planet to treat ver with any kindness. Ve doesn’t really understand anything that’s going on. We should tell ver everything.»

«Except that we can’t,» Aftran said repressively. «What if ve tells the Taxxons what we said? Anyway, I was manipulated by the Empire my entire childhood, and I turned out OK. At least we’re not doing it for evil.» To Sky Hive, she said, «Just call me your queen for now. Everyone will know what you mean. And when the time comes, I will announce my name, and we will defeat my enemies together.»

«WE WILL! JUST TELL ME WHO YOUR ENEMIES ARE!»

«I don’t even know who will end up on my side, in the end,» Aftran said. «Sometimes it’s not so clear who your enemies are. Here’s what I can tell you: I don’t want any Taxxons to be hurt, if we can help it. But our enemies won’t care how many Taxxons they have to hurt to get what they want.» When the liquid in the tank started to congeal and give off a strange smell, she added hastily, «Now let me feed you. I’ve been told you’ve probably used up almost all the food in your tank by now.»

That was an effective distraction. The strange smell faded, and the glowing gunk oozed and bubbled in the tank. I squatted down and hauled up the feed bag. «Lift with your legs, not your back,» Mercurio reminded me. I wobbled and practically threw the sack over the edge. Crumbly red dirt cascaded into the tank. I worried for a moment that Sky Hive might dry out from it, but I saw a steady stream of water coming up from a pipe at the bottom of the tank. The glow of the Hive was nearly smothered in mud.

«Is that good?» Aftran said. «We had it brought in from your world.»

The tank burbled. «DRY. ACIDIC. BUT IT IS FOOD.»

«Well, everyone else’s food sucks around here,» I thought. «Why would vers be any different?»

«The food came a long way,» Aftran said apologetically.

«SO DID I.»

There was nothing to say to that. So I thought, «You think it’s time?»

«I guess so.» To Sky Hive, Aftran said, «Would you like to meet one of the Taxxons of your ship, Sky?»

«YES! BRING THEM ALL TO ME!»

«Let’s start with one, and make sure it goes well,» Aftran said. 

I walked back to the door, opened the comm panel, and said to Trafit, “Bring in the Taxxon.”

«CAN’T YOU BRING THEM ALL, MY QUEEN? I PROMISE I WILL BE GOOD TO THEM.»

«You are still very small,» Aftran said, «and there are about 150 Taxxons on board. Start with one.»

Through the glass of the door, I saw a large queen Taxxon, hir ring of teeth glistening with drool. Aftran said, «Sky, you know about the Hunger. I do not want to have to hurt this Taxxon. Am I safe from hir in this room?»

«YES. SO LONG AS YOU DO NOT STAND BETWEEN HIR AND ME.»

I still reached into my suit pocket for a Dracon beam. I pressed the panel to open the door to the storage bay, and flattened myself and Mercurio against the wall. Yiissrass rushed in, screeching.

«COME! COME TO ME!»

Yiissrass surged over the edge of the tank. Sie opened hir mouth wide and began to gorge on the fungi- and microbe-laced mud.

Bile rose in my throat. My hand went clammy around the Dracon beam. «Is sie _eating_ Sky Hive?! Should I shoot?»

Aftran called out to Sky Hive. «Are you all right?»

«YES. FINALLY,» Sky sighed. Yiissrass was completely submerged in glowing muck, writhing around, splattering it over the edges. «NOW I CAN REALLY MOVE. AND THIS POOR TAXXON HAS THE WRONG LIFE INSIDE! I CAN PLANT THE RIGHT LIFE IN HIR INNER PARTS.»

The tank squelched and sloshed. I wasn’t afraid for Sky Hive anymore, but I still felt like I might be sick. Aftran clamped down on my nausea, which wouldn’t fit the whole badass Visser One image, but I still couldn’t stand to watch and listen anymore, even if this was exactly what both Sky Hive and Yiissrass wanted.

«Well, it seems like you’re getting on well,» Aftran said. «I’ll be back soon.» And we slipped out of the storage bay, Aftran carefully hiding my relief from Trafit.

  


**Celia Hernandez – Encrypted Private Message**

  


**Lourdes**

So, how’s that project with the National Guard going?

  


**Celia Hernandez**

Not bad. I have three units I know are clean. They all have a lot of questions after some of their soldiers ditched their orders to join military exercises and went AWOL. I haven’t explained yet; they’d think I’m cuckoo. I’ve just talked vaguely about subversive elements.

  


**Celia Hernandez**

I have a problem, though, which is what to do with them now. If I bring them back to civilization, they’re back at risk of infestation unless I get them to believe the whole truth.

  


**Lourdes**

Well, good news. I’ve got a way for your troops to see solid proof that aliens are real.

  


**Lourdes**

But first we need to test the waters. For all we know, you’ve been taken and everything you just said is a lie.

  


**Celia Hernandez**

Right. I’d say the same is true on my end, but I get the feeling that if you people were taken, things would be a lot worse right now.

  


**Lourdes**

You got that right.

  


**Lourdes**

Get one of your units to bring a pallet of military rations to these coordinates at 0100 tonight. 

  


[Attached file: ‘lat-long.txt’]

  


**Lourdes**

Tell them to leave immediately after they make the drop. We will treat anyone who is still there when we show up as a possible enemy combatant. 

  


**Celia Hernandez**

How am I supposed to explain that order to them?

  


**Lourdes**

You’re the governor, not me. Think of something.

  


**Cassie**

I woke up hungry, exhausted, and aching all over. “Sleeping on cold mud can’t be good for you,” Quincy grumbled, and my dad clutched his lower back and winced in agreement. 

Robin was already awake. He came over to us and said, “Hey, guys. We’re meeting in the feeding area of the _Ralek River_ for breakfast.”

I rubbed the grit out of my eyes with the back of my fist. “Are the Andalites okay with that?”

“I don’t see them anywhere,” Robin said, “so they’re either sleeping or working on that virus. So nobody’s stopping us, I guess.”

Jake struggled up to his elbows in his sleeping bag. “Good enough for me.”

We slogged up to the third level of the _Ralek River._ There was nowhere to sit, so we ended up cross-legged in the alien grass, nearly knee-to-knee for lack of space, and Emeraude and Abineng had to stand out in the corridor. Marjorie was sorting and counting all the food we’d managed to carry out of Kref Magh, which didn’t look like much food at all for twenty-nine people. When she was done with her inventory, she declared, “We have enough for two days if we ration out food for the adults. I wouldn’t dare take anything from our babies unless we absolutely have to.”

“Is there any meat for Tobias?” Rachel demanded.

“Three cans of Spam,” Marjorie said, holding them up. “Take ‘em or leave ‘em.”

“Leave them,” Dad said. “They have too much sodium for a bird. They could poison you, Tobias.”

There weren’t enough plates and utensils for everyone, so we went in shifts, loading up plates, then washing them in the weird recycled waterfall to pass on to the next person. While Dad and I waited for our turn, he said, “There’s got to be moles down here, right? That would be good food for a hawk.”

“How are we going to catch a mole?” I said. 

“Maybe a Taxxon could get one for him?” Dad said.

Tobias must have been listening, because he said, «And bring it back to me without eating it first? I don’t think so.»

“Worth a try,” I said. “You must be really hungry, Tobias.”

Tobias flared out his feathers, then flew toward the drop shaft. 

I saw Jake, Marco, Loren, and Julie standing by the waterfall with Lourdes, in her human disguise. Her Afghan hound dæmon projected inside the waterfall, so she didn’t make the crowding worse with a dæmon that wasn’t even real. I went over to find out what was going on.

“Tell her the troops have to leave before we show up,” Jake said to Lourdes. “We’ll hang out just underground and see if they actually follow orders. Once they’re gone we grab the MREs and go back to the Hive.”

“ _Without_ eating them all in one big gulp?” Marco said. “That’s a lot of faith to put in a Taxxon, Jake.”

“We’ll talk it over with the Taxxons,” said Jake. “We don’t really have any better ideas.”

Loren was looking around the crowded room thoughtfully, Jaxom tucked under one arm to keep him out of foot traffic. “You know, if it goes well, we could get all these people out of here. They’d be much better off in an army barracks than down here.”

“I’m almost out of anticonvulsants,” Julie said. “And I’m not the only one low on meds.”

“Who are you talking to?” I asked Lourdes.

“The governor,” she said. “I’ll keep you updated on what she says.”

I noticed Marjorie signaling for the next breakfast shift, so I said, “Come on,” and led the group to collect our breakfast plates: canned beans, Spam, and a bruised apple. We filled our cups in the waterfall and ate breakfast, not talking much. We all gripped tight to our dæmons, holding them close, out of the press of people.

As I washed off my cutlery in the waterfall, I saw Estrid come up from the drop shaft, her legs caked with mud. She’d been out and about in the Hive, while Lourdes was busy here with us. I set down my plate and followed her to the corridor, excusing myself around Abi and Emeraude. She saw me coming up behind her, of course, and stopped.

“What are you doing, Estrid?” I demanded. 

«Going for a walk,» she said airily. «It is too confining, staying here on the ship all the time.»

I heard heavy hoofbeats on metal behind me, and knew Abi and Emeraude were backing me up. “Don’t bullshit us, Estrid,” Abi said.

Estrid huffed. «You cannot expect me _not_ to be scientifically curious about our surroundings. No Andalite scientist has ever had the chance to observe a Living Hive before.»

On my arm, Quincy mantled his wings and bared his fangs. I said, “The rebel Taxxons are the only reason we’re all alive right now. If you do one of your _experiments_ on the Living Hive and it decides to kick us out, we are _out_. And I guarantee Visser Five will hunt you down personally. He’s obsessed with Andalites. He won’t kill you quick.”

Estrid’s tail snapped upward. Her dark brown main eyes burned. «Save your threats. I understand exactly what kind of creature Visser Five is. I know the stakes. I will not jeopardize my survival.»

I turned around. Quincy landed by Abi’s ear and whispered, “Estrid didn’t technically _do_ anything to Toby, either. And she’ll get enough of a Living Hive sample just from the mud on her legs to start tinkering around. Get Lourdes on her.”

I went down the drop shaft and out, because I was worried about Tobias. His avian metabolism was too fast to go much longer without food. Outside the ship, Loren, Jake, and Tobias were talking to a few Taxxons, Tobias perched on Loren’s shoulder. I couldn’t tell one Taxxon from another, but I figured out pretty quick that the one in front was Arbron, who was saying, «– too dangerous, anyway. If the soldiers are Controllers, they’ll attack, and you know how badly we hold up in a firefight.»

Merlyse hid her face in the curve of Jake’s neck. He massaged his eyes with his fingertips and said, “So you’re saying one of us has to morph Taxxon.”

«Probably two,» Arbron said, «if you mean to haul back enough rations for all of your humans.»

«I’ll do it,» Tobias said. «I’m used to dealing with predator instincts.»

“I’ll go,” I said, “if Illim agrees to go with me. And Tobias? You should bring a Yeerk too.”

Loren’s head snapped toward me. “What? Why?”

“The whole reason why the Taxxons joined the Yeerk Empire is because they can help manage the Hunger,” I said. “Illim is used to a Taxxon host, specifically. Tobias, we could find you another Yeerk who’s done this before, maybe.”

«I’d rather have Rachel,» Tobias said. «She knows me.»

_I wonder if Rachel is the best person to have along when you need to control your wild instincts,_ I thought.

_Maybe she’s exactly the right person to do that,_ Quincy replied. 

“Are any of you okay with us acquiring your DNA?” I said to the Taxxons.

Arbron turned to the Taxxons beside him and hissed in their language for a while. Then he pointed his jelly eyes at us and said, «They agree, but only if you do a Frolis maneuver. They think it would be creepy for you to go around as perfect copies of them. I can hardly blame them.»

“Oh. Huh. Okay,” I said. I hadn’t really thought of that.

_You thought of it when Ax made his human morph,_ Quincy pointed out. _Why would it be any different for Taxxons?_

A Taxxon reached out for Tobias’s talon with a pincer hand, as if to offer him a handshake. Tobias gingerly leaned over and touched his beak to the pincer. I took a deep breath and walked up to Arbron. 

«This DNA is not truly mine to give,» Arbron said. «I regret that I do not even know which Hive this Taxxon body came from, though I did my best to find out, later.»

“I think you’ve made it yours by now,” I said, and I touched him in the place where a neck would be on a human, below the head with its ring of needle teeth. The tips of Quincy’s fangs prickled my inner arm, a reminder from him about what we had in common. Arbron slipped into the acquiring trance as I focused on him, the ways he was like a centipede, a deep sea worm, and a termite all at once. As the trance faded, I dropped my hand.

«You put your hand here,» Arbron said, touching the spot with one of his pincer hands, «and you were not afraid.»

“I was,” I admitted. “But fear evolved as a way to protect you from harm – and harm isn’t the same for us, anymore. So fear isn’t all that useful when you’re an Animorph.” And I moved on to the next Taxxon, whose name was Austere.

When we were done, Loren said to Arbron, “Can you help Tobias? He’s about to starve down here. Could you get him a mole or something?”

«Without eating it? No,» Arbron said regretfully. «Seaside Hive’s support only helps us so far. But Seaside may be able to help you.»

«YES?» the Hive boomed all around us. Loren, Jake, and I all jumped, and Tobias’s feathers fluffed out.

«One of our guests is hungry,» Arbron said. «He needs fresh meat. Can you help him?»

«I CAN. BUT YOU MUST STAY WELL AWAY, MY TAXXONS. IT IS NOT GOOD FOR YOU TO SMELL FRESH MEAT, NOT WHEN I HAVE WORKED SO HARD TO GET YOU ON SOIL AGAIN.»

The Taxxons hastily backed away. Then, something fell in a rush of dirt from the Hive’s cavernous, mossy ceiling and splattered on the ground in front of us. Some of it got on my shoe. It glistened. Chunks of meat, bone, and fur lay on the glowing algae floor.

«DOES THAT HELP?» said Seaside Hive.

«Um,» said Tobias. «I guess… yeah? Though maybe next time be a little, um. Gentler with it?»

I held up my hand to cover my grin, and tried not to look at Jake as he choked back a laugh.

«THE MOLES ARE ALL CLOSER TO THE SURFACE THAN YOU.»

«Then I’ll fly up to the ceiling,» Tobias said. «Then you won’t have to drop it.»

«FLY? LIKE TUNNELING THROUGH AIR?»

«Yeah, sure, let’s go with that,» Tobias said. He glared around at the rest of us giggling. «A little privacy here? I am not eating splattered mole with an audience.» He glided down to the ground from Loren’s shoulder, and I waved goodbye, still smiling.

“God, every time I think our lives can’t get any weirder,” Quincy said. “So. What now?”

It was a good question. It wasn’t like there was much to do down here. I said through a yawn, “We could try to talk to some Taxxons, maybe?”

Quincy nipped my wrist. “Or you could get some sleep! It’s not like we got enough, and there’s no day or night down here anyway.”

“Fine, fine,” I grumbled. “You sound like Emeraude.” I went to my sleeping bag and took my shoes off, trying not to get it any muddier than it already was.

“That’s because Emeraude’s right about everything,” Quincy said, tucked against my chest, and I fell asleep like that. 

I don’t know how long I slept. When I woke up, I stared up at the alien moss on the ceiling and thought for a while about what the Taxxon homeworld might be like.

There was a light touch on my shoulder. I looked up. It was Jake, kneeling on his sleeping bag, Merlyse tucked in the crook of his arm. He smiled down at me with a look in his eyes that I knew by now meant that he wanted to go find a place to make out.

_Really?_ I thought. _Now?_

_We’re about to morph a Taxxon,_ Quincy thought. _We all almost died yesterday. Why not now?_

I sighed. “Yes, Jake, but where?”

Jake blushed. “I didn’t say anything.” I just raised my eyebrows, and he rubbed the back of his neck. “Fine. Can we just… push our sleeping bags together and hold hands?”

I smiled and wriggled closer to Jake. He grabbed the edge of my sleeping bag and pulled. Then he lay down and held my hand. Quincy came out from the sleeping bag, just his head showing.

“Where’s Marco?” I said, turning my head so my voice was close to Jake’s ear. 

“He’s with his dad and Nora. They’re kind of freaking out about this creepy place.”

Merlyse strained her head toward Quincy on my chest, careful not to touch me. “You really want him here?”

“Yeah,” I said, a little surprised at him. “I do.”

Jake laughed, making Merl bounce up and down on his chest. “I keep waiting for the moment you come to your senses and tell me to break it off with Marco. But you haven’t.”

“He’s the only other person who knows what it’s like,” I said, squeezing his hand, “to love you the way I do. Of course I want him around.”

Jake choked. Merlyse tucked her head under her wing. Quincy and I waited for them to recover. It took them a long time.

Jake’s parents came to get us for dinner. By then, I was dizzy with hunger – I was used to getting lunch midday.

At dinner, I found Mr. Tidwell. “Has someone told you the plan?” I said.

“Yes,” he said, picking at his tuna and creamed spinach from cans. “I don’t like it. But I can’t stop him from volunteering to save us all.”

“Is he with you now?” I said, though I figured I knew the answer – which he confirmed by shaking his head. “What should I know about him?”

“He’s a scholar,” Mr. Tidwell said. “He has an academic passion for Taxxon languages. You’re probably scared to morph Taxxon – I would be, too – but try not to let him feel you hate them. That would break his heart, I think.” He scraped the last food off his plate, then put it down and looked at me fiercely. “Bring him back safe.”

“I’ll try,” I said, which was all I could say.

  


There was still a little time left before the mission, which I spent with my dad. We stood by the well of baby Taxxons and watched them swim around, while the queen, Judicial, watched us. Despite everything, there was still new and amazing biology to learn about.

Jake came to get me when it was time. Dad came along. We walked over to the Aftran Plisam Pool. Mr. Tidwell and the strange teenager with the pitbull dæmon we saw our last time in the Hive were singing in Spanish together next to the Pool.

“Who’s that?” I said. “I don’t recognize them from Kref Magh.”

Mr. Tidwell and the stranger finished the chorus. The stranger was wobbly and off-key, but Mr. Tidwell had a beautiful deep voice like a mountain singing. He said, “This is Deinfestation with Sai. Sai was created by the Chee to be a companion for Yeerks.”

I blinked. “Like… the Chee were created as companions for the Pemalites?”

“A robot invented by a robot,” Jake said, shaking his head. “Man, that’s confusing.”

“What you were singing for Sai – that was Guantanamera, right?” Dad said. “Why that one?”

Mr. Tidwell said, “It was written by a poet who was exiled from Cuba for demanding an end to Spanish rule over the island. It’s about trying to hold on to his voice and his dignity, even when he can’t go home.”

“Oh,” said Dad. It went very quiet.

Mr. Tidwell tipped his head toward the bucket under his arm. Illim dropped out of his ear and into the bucket with a splash. He passed the bucket to me. Both his fish dæmon and Illim were inside.

_He could have just handed Illim to you directly,_ Quincy thought. _He’s saying something._

_He’s showing me how vulnerable he feels,_ I thought. _Like he’s giving me his soul._

“Be careful with him,” Mr. Tidwell said. “None of the Yeerks have been feeling themselves since we got down here.”

I reached in, taking care not to touch the dæmon. I took Illim out and held him to my ear. I looked at my dad, who was clutching at Emeraude’s neck, eyes wide. “He’s not going to hurt me, Dad,” I said, as Illim burrowed into my ear, my brain.

I froze up and went fuzzy-headed as Illim adjusted to me. His touch was much lighter on my mind than what I’d experienced with Aftran or Rachel in Yeerk morph. Of course it was – he had a lot of experience in a voluntary partnership with a human, and before that with a Taxxon. There was no rifling through my every thought, no moving my eyes without my say-so. My muscles slowly loosened up. I felt some faint nerves from him, and a sense of prickly edginess, like my mom got with her allergies in the spring. Tidwell wasn’t wrong about the Yeerks feeling off. «Hey,» I thought. «What’s up?»

«You have the mind of a soldier,» he said, «and we’re about to go to a possible battle.»

That made me uncomfortable, but I couldn’t exactly deny it. «It was brave of you to volunteer for this, especially when you’re not feeling good. Thank you.»

“Everything okay?” said Mr. Tidwell.

At the sound of Tidwell’s voice, Illim’s control broke, and he said with my mouth, “Yes, I’m okay,” with a warmth that wasn’t mine. I saw my dad’s mouth flatten into a line; he could tell that wasn’t me. 

It was the same way I could tell, when Tobias walked over, that it wasn’t just Tobias in there. His walk was centered and graceful, his center of gravity down in his hips, Rachel’s gymnastic poise in his body. He looked me in the eye and Rachel said, “Let’s do it.”

«Look at my memories of doing this before,» I said, pulling up memories that were more graceful than grotesque: the time I kept my osprey wings til the last and looked like an angel, the time I defeated the Veleek by morphing a humpback whale midair. Illim feasted on the memories the way a librarian might on a fascinating old book, pulling tiny details into focus, comparing and contrasting.

«Which Taxxons did you acquire?» Illim asked, and I showed him the Taxxons through my eyes: an indistinguishable mass of red jelly eyes and spit-shiny teeth and translucent yellow carapace. «Not indistinguishable,» Illim said, focusing on the length and shape of the upper arm sets of the Taxxons I’d acquired, their damp petrichor smell. «Those were all worker Taxxons you acquired, see?»

We combined our focus on the Taxxon composite morph, and changed at warp speed. 

It was incredible. I would have laughed if the morph weren’t so totally weird and gross. But the combination of my eye for animal anatomy and Illim’s total familiarity with a Taxxon host body made my _estreen_ talent kick into high gear. I grew first, taller and taller. My arms melted into my sides, and new arms popped out along my front in two long rows, pincer-like toward my head and cone-like farther down. My human legs then melted together, and I fell forward onto my short bug legs. Inside, I felt my bones melt away, until I sagged on my legs, a bag of guts lying on a rack. I stopped drooping in on myself when a thin carapace formed around me. And at my front end came a mouth, itching with rows and rows of needle-like teeth.

«Finally,» Illim said, and immediately dug the mouth into the muddy floor, biting and gulping.

«What are you doing?» I said. A rope-like tongue formed even as we ate, pushing forward through a mouthful of mud.

«We need to colonize the guts of this Taxxon morph with Living Hive microbes as quickly as possible,» Illim said. «It’s the best protection we have against the Hunger.» 

POP! POP! Red jelly eyes burst into life, and I saw the world with the almost familiar fragmentation of insect eyes. The Taxxon’s hearing came too, and an exquisitely delicate sense of taste for the composition of the mud I was noisily gulping down. I could taste the Living Hive in the mud, and it was _good_.

_So_ good. I needed more! I ate faster, faster, guzzling the mud down. Becoming one with the Hive, as I was meant to be.

Somewhere above me, a Taxxon scream, and a thought-speak voice yelling, «Tobias! Rachel! STOP!» A roar that made the mud around me quiver, then another Taxxon screech.

«CHILDREN, STOP AND LISTEN,» said the Living Hive. I felt the command in the empty, hungry core of myself. I froze. I listened.

“Illim?” a voice shouted. “Illim! Come back up. You’re tunneling the wrong way!”

«Julian!» cried a voice inside my head. Who was that? Why was there a voice in my head that wasn’t the Hive? «Julian, I’m coming.»

I turned around, out of the soothing darkness of the mud, up into the light of the Living Hive. A terrifying predator was there, growling at another Taxxon. In front of me was another creature. Not a predator. It smelled delicious.

«NO!» Illim cried. My body froze solid, as if the Hive had commanded me to. «That’s Julian!»

Julian. Julian Tidwell. My former Spanish teacher. The predator was Jake in tiger morph. The other Taxxon was Rachel and Tobias.

«We’re okay,» I said, trying to make it true by saying it. «We’re okay, we’re okay. Hey, Tobias. Eat some mud. It helps.»

The Taxxon that was Rachel and Tobias smacked its face down in the mud and started chewing. Its front end quickly disappeared into the hole it made in the floor. 

«Wrong way again,» Jake muttered. «Never mind, just let them go for a while. The rest of us need to morph fly so we can hitch a ride.»

«Which way are we supposed to be going?» I said. The Hive felt completely different to me now as a Taxxon than it had as a human. If I’d understood directions before, they felt like they were in another language now.

The bioluminescent fungus around one of the tunnels high up on a wall pulsed brightly in my vision. «THIS WAY,» said the Living Hive, and I immediately wanted to go to that tunnel, to follow the Hive’s guiding light. But Illim kept us still. I vaguely noticed the Animorphs gathering around and morphing fly, felt the vibrations in the ground as Rachel and Tobias burrowed back up. 

«Are we sure they have a grip? The way they keep staring at the wall is really creepy.» Marco, of course.

«’M fine,» I said, a little dreamily. I was so, so hungry, but the Living Hive had a mission for me, so I had to stick it out. 

«Okay, guys,» Jake said. «We’ve latched on. You can go now.»

I surged toward the wall and right up it, my legs gripping at the dirt. Rachel and Tobias were right behind me. I knew exactly where to go, and when I stuck my front half in the tunnel, it sucked me in, and pulled me with terrifying alien strength to a place where troops of heavily armed Controllers might be waiting for us – or maybe the food and allies we desperately needed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content notes: Body horror, cannibalism, food insecurity, and hunger, but no kids get murdered this chapter, so that’s nice.
> 
> [Here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWvlSlQ3CTw) is the song Tidwell sang for Sai, though as a bass he would have sung down the octave. Here is my translation of the verse that seems most relevant to the Guardians' situation:
> 
> These are my wishes for when I die,   
> Without a homeland but without a master:  
> These are my wishes for when I die,  
> Without a homeland but without a master:  
> I want you to lay down in my tomb  
> A branch of flowers and a flag.


	5. Two Dead Children

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> «It is not possible to conceive of a greater evil than the deliberate killing of a child.»  
> – Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill, _Megamorphs #3: Elfangor’s Secret_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content notes at the end.

** Cassie **

As a fly, the Hive’s tunnels had been a wild ride. As a Taxxon, it felt natural, almost like a dolphin swimming through the ocean. This was the Taxxon’s ocean – wet mud filled with the microbiome of the Living Hive. I sped along, still burning with hunger, but filled with purpose. It was this intoxicating feeling, like I knew I was being sent somewhere for an important reason. It wasn’t the total loss of self I had as a termite, but more like the way soldiers look in movies about World War II. Like they’re doing their duty because their comrades need them to, and it’s all for an important cause. The way I thought war was supposed to be, before I became a soldier myself.

Eventually, I slowed, then came to a stop. I tasted that the Living Hive was barely detectable in the soil anymore. «THIS IS AS FAR AS I GO,» the Hive said. «CONTINUE STRAIGHT AHEAD TO THE SURFACE AT THE SAME ANGLE, AND YOU WILL ARRIVE AT YOUR DESTINATION.»

«Thank you,» I said. I flicked my tongue ahead and found there was no more tunnel. I would have to dig the rest of the way. 

After eating the mud deep within the Living Hive, the regular old California dirt tasted like week-old leftovers. It was horribly dry. No matter how much I ate, it never soothed the Hunger. But the idea of stopping was even worse, because then I’d be empty. 

I could sense when I was close to the surface. «Stop,» Illim said, and when I couldn’t, he made me. Rachel and Tobias bumped right up against my butt end – I tried not to think how nasty that must be right now – and Illim broadcast to all of us, «Do you feel that? The vibrations.»

«The earth is shaking,» Tobias said. «Something big is going on up there.»

«The troops marching in?» I said shakily. «Didn’t we tell the governor the soldiers should be quiet about this?»

«We did,» Jake said grimly. I’d almost forgotten he was there. It was hard to think about anything but the Hunger and the mission in this morph.

«We have to get closer,» Rachel said.

«Do it,» Jake said. «But don’t break the surface.»

It was hard to go slowly. Easier to suck the dirt down greedily, even if it wasn’t the right dirt. But I had to go slow so I wouldn’t come bursting through the surface into… whatever was going on up there. Illim helped, again, drawing on memories of the Living Hive giving me the discipline of purpose. I dug upward slowly, and then stopped.

«Gunfire,» Rachel said. «That’s gunfire.» And screams. Illim and I could hear it too.

«Cassie?» Jake said. «Hit the surface, then back up and hide. We’re going to do some fly recon.»

Slow, so slow. I flicked my tongue out and slurped down the last layers of dirt like I was licking the last delicious scraps of food from a bowl. I felt the cool night air, and the Taxxon instinctively retreated from it into the safe warmth of the ground. The Animorphs in fly morph must have flown up, because Tobias and I, along with Illim and Rachel, were alone.

«Hungry,» Tobias said. I felt the tip of his tongue flicker against my back end. 

«Tobias,» I warned, even though I was just as hungry. 

«I got him,» Rachel growled. «Just hold tight.»

«They’re fighting!» Loren cried. «There’s two units of soldiers here, fighting each other. I guess a Controller unit must have found out about the drop-off.»

«I can’t tell which ones are the Controllers,» Jake said.

«How are we supposed to help?» Marco said. «If we come busting out of the ground as lions and tigers and bears, the regular old humans might start shooting us too.»

«We tell them we’re here to help?»

«Yeah, that’s gonna be super reassuring when their own buddies are firing on them.» Marco, of course. «You can’t trust anybody, but don’t worry, guys, you can trust the creepy little voice inside your brain!»

I said, «What if it’s not a creepy voice in their heads or a big scary monster coming out of the ground? What if it’s just a girl?»

«Cassie!» Illim cried. «You can’t! You’ll be _killed_!»

«Cassie,» Marco said, «I am legally obligated to tell you that’s insane. It’s written in my Animorph contract.»

«I’m the best morpher,» I said stubbornly. «And with Illim to help me, my morph to Taxxon was even quicker. If I get shot, I’ll morph it away.»

«And what if you’re shot in the _head_?» Illim demanded. 

I added for everyone to hear, «I can use my moose morph to make my skull thicker. I’ll look a little weird, but…»

«Do it,» Jake said. «We can’t just sit down here and listen to the Controllers kill that other unit.»

«We’re gonna die,» Illim said. I ignored him. I thought I was going to eat my friends just now and he saved me, so he was just going to have to accept that I could save him. I demorphed, and lay in the dirt, slick with my own Taxxon spit, hearing Tobias’s horrible Taxxon breath on me from behind and the shattering blaze of gunfire ahead. I focused on the moose, the sturdiness of its skull where the antlers attached, ready to take the impact if the moose got into a fight. My head crunched, the skull thickening. I felt moose fur spread over my skull, the back of my neck, and down my shoulders before I stopped the morph. Well, the moose fur was pretty similar to my skin color, so the soldiers probably wouldn’t notice.

«Cassie, you gotta go up there now,» Rachel said. «I just barely have enough of a grip on Tobias so he doesn’t eat you.»

I crawled out of the tunnel into chaos.

Gunfire. It was hard to tell where it was coming from. Shouts. Blazing bright spotlights searching the night for targets. My teeth started chattering. The last thing I wanted to do was call any attention to myself. I was terrified one of the spotlights might land on me any moment. I clutched Quincy to my chest. «Illim,» I thought, «give me the strength to do this.»

Starbursts exploded in front of my eyes as a white light blasted my face. There was a gasp and a thump, and somebody pinned me to the ground, facedown, weight on top of me.

I focused on the moose.

“Kid,” a man’s voice growled in my ear, “what the hell are you doing here? You’re gonna get yourself killed.”

I relaxed and let go of the moose. A real soldier, then. Any Controller would have instantly recognized me as Cassie the Animorph. “I’m your contact,” I said, turning my face to the side so he could hear me. “I’m the one you’re supposed to be handing off rations and medicines to.”

“Shit,” the soldier said. “A kid?”

“Listen,” I said. “Those soldiers you’re fighting. They’re not the soldiers you know. Not anymore. They’ve been taken over by aliens called Yeerks. The governor knows, but she can’t go public with it yet.”

A pause. “That’s crazy. But so is watching soldiers from my own platoon firing at me. Go on.”

“I’m here with other aliens who want to fight them,” I said. “We can help. But we don’t know which of you are on our side and which have been taken over.”

“And even if I told you the differences in our insignia,” the soldier continued, “you probably won’t be able to tell them apart in the heat of battle. Right. What if I tell you where the supplies are? Can you grab them and bug out of here?”

“Yes. But you have to tell whoever’s guarding them not to shoot us, no matter how strange we look.”

The soldier laughed bitterly. “Right. Don’t shoot the bug-eyed alien monsters, just our comrades.”

“I wish we could help you,” I said, “but we can barely help ourselves. We have refugees. Humans being hunted by the Yeerks.”

“If we survive this fight, kid, we’ll help your people. That’s a promise.” The soldier moved a little, so he was between me and the sound of where the closest gunfire was coming from, but gave me enough space to get up into a crouch. Quincy let out a chatter of echolocation, and I slipped into four-eye to look at the man in ephemeral sketches. He didn’t have a visible dæmon, which meant she was probably small and hidden inside his body armor. “Sergeant Hao Li, of Fifth Squad,” he said.

“Cassie Clark,” I said, “of the Guardians of the Galaxy.” Better not to mention Illim. Too complicated. 

“Is that a bat dæmon I see?” Sergeant Li said. “I’ll just point to the truck, then. It’s back that way.” He pointed, and Quincy sent out a burst of echolocation following his finger. Li saluted me. “I’ll comm my squad and let them know the bug-eyed monsters are friendly.”

“Wait,” I said. “How can I get in touch with you? Do you have, like, a radio frequency or something?”

“We do,” Sergeant Li said, “but the alien body-snatchers or whatever they are will be able to listen in. Call my private office line.” 

He told me the number. I mumbled it under my breath a couple times, but Illim said, «Don’t worry, I’ve got it,» and made the memory of Sergeant Li saying the number burn like a camera flash in my mind. 

“Thank you, sir,” I said. “Good luck.” And I ran back to the tunnel.

BA-BA-BAM! Pain exploded in my leg. I half-fell into the tunnel, screaming in shock and pain. I demorphed all the way back to human, then focused on the Taxxon, with Illim speeding along the morph right beside me. 

«Cassie,» Illim said, «that was the craziest thing I’ve ever experienced.»

«Illim,» I said. «That was not even close to the craziest thing _I’ve_ ever experienced.»

«I believe it,» he said. We were back in the Taxxon morph, and the Hunger hit like a sledgehammer. It was a good thing I was facing mouth-up or I would have gone in for a bite of the others right away, who had all demorphed in the tunnel to get ready for battle.

“What happened?” Jake asked.

«I know where the supplies are,» I said. «I talked to a sergeant. One of the real soldiers. He’s told the soldiers near the supply truck not to shoot any, uh, “bug-eyed monsters” who show up.»

“Great,” Marco said. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

Everyone got back in morph, and I led Rachel and Tobias in a tunnel toward the supply truck, guzzling down the dry, empty dirt. It was hard to judge the distance underground relative to what Quincy “saw” with his echolocation, and when I broke surface, we were still a dozen feet short of the truck. There was nothing for it but to shuffle over there as quickly as our Taxxon legs could take us. A soldier standing guard at the supply truck saw us, screamed, and dropped his weapon.

«Hi,» Tobias said, with some of Rachel’s mischief in him. «We’re the bug-eyed monsters from outer space.»

The soldier’s monitor lizard dæmon, bulky with body armor, hid behind his legs. “Voice,” she gasped. “In my head.”

«You thought your sergeant was talking crazy, huh,» Rachel said. «Well, surprise, he wasn’t. Can we move it along and get those rations? This isn’t really a nice place to hang out.»

«Cassie,» I said. «Sergeant Li told you to help Cassie, right?»

The soldier nodded, and jerkily moved toward the back of the supply truck. We followed. He rolled back the canvas back of the truck, and took out two big pallets of food. The Taxxon morph could smell it even through the packet. Drool gathered in my mouth and splattered on the ground. The trip back was going to be _bad_.

«I trusted you to do your job,» Illim said. «Trust me to do mine.»

«Um,» I thought. «How are we supposed to carry these? Taxxon arms are kind of pathetic.»

«It’s easiest if you strap things onto your back,» Illim said.

«Hey,» I said. «I see you have some straps you used to make sure the stuff didn’t move around in transit. Is there, uh, any chance you could strap them onto us?»

The soldier just stared at our spit-dripping needle-toothed mouths in mute disbelief.

«If we try to eat you, you can shoot us,» Tobias said. «Just please not the head.»

The soldier shook his head, seemed to accept that this was his life now, and carried a pallet over to Rachel and Tobias. He put it on the Taxxon back – «Oof, that’s heavy,» Tobias said – and secured the straps between the rows of giant centipede legs with shaking hands. Then he came over did the same for me. 

«Thank you so much,» I said. «Please don’t die.»

We scuttled back to the tunnel, much more slowly this time. Rachel and Tobias went first. I went second, staring with longing at the delicious-smelling box right ahead of me. 

«You don’t need that,» Illim said hypnotically. «You’ll be home soon. Home with the Living Hive. And it will be so proud that you did your mission just right.»

Home. Home. I just had to make it home.

It probably took less time to get back, since we didn’t have to dig a new tunnel to go back, but it felt like longer. The food was dizzying, the struggle not to eat it a constant battle I thought I’d lose any second. It was only when we were back in the embrace of the Living Hive that we got any relief.

«THANK YOU SO MUCH, CHILDREN,» the Hive said, and I glowed with accomplishment. «LET ME TAKE YOU HOME.» It pulled us back at enormous speed, down and down and down, and spat us back out in the central Hive chamber. I demorphed as soon as I hit the ground. 

The human refugees came running up to where we were sprawled in the mud next to the pallets of rations. “How did it go?” said Tidwell urgently. 

I looked up at him and smiled with all of Illim’s joy at seeing him again. “I think you guys might have a safe place to go.”

  


** Tidwell **

Robin gave me a large box, a bag of medicines and first aid kits, some plastic bags, a carefully written-out ledger, and a smooth glossy-dark cylinder. “Sort the medicines by who needs what prescription and label the bags with the person’s name,” he said. “General medicines and first aid stay in the big bag. Pack them all in the box.”

I carefully held on to all the stuff and waved the mysterious cylinder between two fingers. “What’s this?”

“Some kind of Andalite marker, apparently,” Robin said, shrugging. “Press the button on the side and it writes.” He paused at the flap of the “portable scoop” we had unpacked from the _Ralek River_. “Are you coming with us?”

I almost answered him right away, but Illim held me back. “Give us some time to think,” he said.

Robin nodded. His eyes lingered on me a moment before he left. It was weird being around the refugees sometimes. Their Peace Movement friends had all been killed. I think they were jealous of me, for still having Illim around. 

I studied the ledger and started stuffing and labeling bags of medicine, soothing myself with the satisfaction of putting everything in its place. I tried not to notice that one of the bags had a bottle of Xanax and was labeled “Marco.” I didn’t pack that one in the box.

 _He’s feeling worse,_ Kalysico noticed, as Illim prickled with pain inside my head. _What is this place doing to him?_

«You could go,» Illim said. «You could get something better for Kalysico than a bucket. You could be _safe._ »

I looked over at Kaly in her bucket. She hated it. Normally in her tank she had some plastic seaweed she could play around with and hide in. I hated it too, mostly because I was constantly afraid I would trip over my own feet and spill her on the ground.

“You told me the same thing in a bookshop seven months ago,” I said. “If I had taken you up on it – if I had gone to the valley with the refugees – I would still be where I am now. And you would be worse off. Illim, there’s no guarantee of safety. And the Aftran Plisam Pool is learning so much from us. All those Yeerks who get hit with this virus? They’re going to have to learn what we know, too.” I packed medicines away, carefully filling the whole box. “I have the morphing power now. It’s time to stop believing I’m helpless.”

I could feel Illim’s relief. He’d been dreading the idea of watching me go even as he’d proposed it. He was scared. He needed me. «After the war, I hope your people recognize how great of a hero you are, Julian.»

“I’m not a hero. I’m just a teacher.” I carefully picked up the box and Kaly’s bucket. 

«You won’t drop her, I promise,» Illim said, guiding my steps. I walked out of the portable scoop into the glowing muck. 

I found Peter Chen near the scoop, rolling up his sleeping bag. I awkwardly waved at him. He stood up, and I waved the bag labeled “Marco” at him. “Hey,” I said. “Before you catch that tunnel out of here – give this to Marco.” Peter took the bag, saw the pill bottle through the clear plastic, and looked back up at me, confused. I shrugged. “It’s none of my business. I’m not even sure it’s any of yours. If he needs it, he needs it.” 

As I moved on, I wondered what it would be like for the Animorphs to say goodbye to their families, not knowing if they’d see them again. At least I wouldn’t be saying goodbye to Illim, not for as long as I had the option.

  


** Jake **

I said goodbye to my parents. It was awful how much of a relief it was. 

The Taxxons and the Living Hive had made a tunnel up to the surface at a rendezvous point with Sergeant Li’s unit, which we’d arranged after Lourdes and Gonrod hacked together a way to call him through the _Ralek River_ ’s communication console. Our families were going, along with all the other human refugees who’d been living in Kref Magh. Walter, Jamal, and Julie would help the soldiers protect the refugees from the Controller units. 

I could see Marco, Rachel, and Cassie standing around with their families, each in their own little clump, well away from any of the Taxxon tunnel entrances. Cassie and her dad were hugging tightly, Quincy hanging from Emeraude’s antler like it was a branch. Dia was half inside Mirazai’s tank as Marco side-hugged his dad and ignored his stepmom. Rachel was kneeling down in the mud so she could say something to Sara face-to-face. I stood a little back from my parents, rubbing the back of my neck like I was the new kid trying to make conversation at school.

“So,” I said. “You ready for the trip?”

Mom fiddled with the strap of the duffel bag at her feet. “We’ll make it.”

It was going to be kind of brutal. The Taxxons couldn’t make the tunnel too steep, or the kids on the trip would never make it. Since it wasn’t steep, it had to be super long to make it all the way to the surface. The walk was going to take all day, and if someone got tired or injured along the way, they would have to just keep going.

“You’ll make it,” I said. “And you’ll have people looking out for you.” Like I couldn’t do. 

Dad cleared his throat. “Still no word from Tom?”

My throat tightened painfully. “No. Nothing.” I wanted to say he would be okay, and they shouldn’t worry. But I’d already spent years lying to my parents. I was still lying to them by pretending that Tom had gotten trapped in morph by accident. I couldn’t stand any more lies.

Mom rushed forward to hug me. Merlyse fluttered off my arm to Tz’irah’s back. Mom cried into my shoulder. “Don’t die, Jake. Don’t. Please don’t. Your father and I can’t lose anything more. We can’t.”

Dad joined the hug too, silent. I wanted it to comfort me. It didn’t. The only comfort was that I didn’t have to worry about them anymore. For now, they were somebody else’s problem.

  


** Toby **

It was time to go around and check on my traps.

Trapping Hork-Bajir-Controllers so we could drag them away and free them was a strategy we had used before. But now, when outright raids on our enemies were much riskier, and we were trying to use our knowledge of the forest against them, traps had become essential.

The trick was to find a tree that was obviously excellent for swinging, and weaken the crucial swinging branches in a subtle way – strategic cuts to the base of the branch, or hollowing out the trunk of a dead tree through a bird’s hole. The modifications left a _hrala_ signature, but only a small one. The weakened branch was connected by a trigger string to another tree or a pile of large rocks. When our enemies tried to use the trap branches, they fell into a covered pit at the base of the tree, and a heavy weight fell on top of them, trapping them inside the pit. 

At the first trap I checked, I saw the telltale vortex of _hrala_ rising from the pit. I rolled the dead tree away from it, and found an unconscious Gold Band inside. We didn’t have time to starve the Yeerks out, and these Yeerks were too fanatic to be talked into a quick, easy death. I cut open the Gold Band’s skull with my blade and saw the Yeerk wrapped in a slimy layer around his brain. I reached in, pinched the Yeerk’s membrane, and pulled. Long, stringy, like sap from a wound in a tree, I extracted the Yeerk from my Hork-Bajir brother’s head. Its _hrala_ sputtered and faded in my hands as it died. I cast the disgusting sticky shreds to the forest floor, then held the wound closed, hoping fiercely that I had not infected him. There was a reason why this method was a last resort. I morphed to hawk, thought-spoke to Makooma Takit to tell her where to find him, and flew on to the next trap.

The next five traps were empty. The one after that had been tripped, but the rubble had been shoved out of the pit – the Controller had gotten away. That was worrying. I didn’t want anyone going back to warn the others about how my traps worked. I was going to have to change my strategy.

The eighth trap I checked had also been tripped. I saw the glow of _hrala_ rising from the pit, but strangely, it wasn’t very much. Perhaps I had taken too long to check the trap, and the Controller had just died of thirst or injury. I rushed toward the pit and rolled away the boulder pinning the Hork-Bajir down.

I stared down at a disconnected mess that my mind at first refused to piece together into reality. Exposed, pale bone. Ragged, wet breathing. Congealing green blood. Tiny hands scrabbling weakly in the dirt.

I had calibrated the deadfall traps with enough weight to pin down, but not kill, an adult Hork-Bajir. I had not calibrated them for a child.

I joined the child in the pit. I did not recognize her from Kref Magh. The bark in my stomach turned to splinters when I got an up-close look at her wounds. Maybe, just maybe, we could have nursed her back to health in Kref Magh. Now, on the run with no resources, there was no way we could treat such grievous wounds. The child would die, and I had killed her. “What,” I began. I started over. “What are you doing here, little one? Where did you come from?”

The child turned her head in the dirt to face me and snarled weakly. “Stop wasting my time and kill me already.”

One of my hearts stopped, until it was kicked back into gear by the others. Those were not the words of a Hork-Bajir child. “So you’re infesting little children now,” I said. “You can’t even give them six months for whatever passes for a childhood in your compounds, is that it?”

The tiny Controller retched up blood, then said, “We need as many _hrala_ -sight-capable agents as possible to destroy your little rebellion. Your children are capable.”

More than anything, I wanted a moment of freedom for this little girl before she died. Extracting the Yeerk from her head would kill her, but it was worth it for even a moment to be herself. “I’m sorry, little one,” I whispered, and I very gently opened up the back of her skull with just the tip of my wrist blade. I pinched the skin of the Yeerk with the pointed ends of my nails and pulled. The girl convulsed in my arms. She was seizing. I kept pulling. The Yeerk stretched impossibly long, like viscous honey pooling down from a shattered beehive. I sang to the little girl, holding her spasming, broken body in my arm. I didn’t know if she could hear me. If she could hear me, then the song was for the two of us alone. It was nothing her Yeerk, her slaver, would ever get to hear.

  


_ Mother Sky and Father Deep, _

_ Raise my daughter up to sleep. _

_ On a sturdy branch she lies, _

_ Mother’s flowers in her eyes. _

_ As she sleeps, her Father keeps _

_ Monsters quiet in the deeps. _

_ In her Mother’s arms she’ll see _

Hrala _blooming on the Tree._

  


** Illim **

The taste and smell of the Pool sludge had gotten worse ever since the Aftran Plisam Pool had moved into the Living Hive. With SymbiontAI’s help we had covered the Pool to try to keep out contaminants, but it’s very hard to keep out microbes completely, and the Living Hive was itself a vast microbial colony. Whether it was the Living Hive or something else in all the mud, something microbial was throwing off the balance of the Pool, and nearly everyone complained of it. We felt sicker and more irritable with every passing day as the smell grew harsher.

Now, though. Now the smell was a _lot_ worse, and it wasn’t coming from everywhere in the Pool liquid, but from some origin point. It was on my way toward whatever the smell was coming from that Akdor’s Worst Nightmare found me.

“Illim,” said AWN. “You have to get to Tidwell right now. That smell is a dead Yeerk.”

I halted mid-swim, as did the Yeerks around me who heard her. I realized forcefully that I had no idea what a dead Yeerk smelled like. There had always been pool maintenance Gedd-Controllers available to remove the bodies of dead Yeerks from the Pools as quickly as possible. The smell choked me. I felt like I had been thrown out of the Pool into saltwater. “Who died?” demanded Generation Freedom, scrunching and unscrunching in agitation. “What’s going on!”

AWN compacted in on herself as tightly as she could. “It’s Mielan 71.”

Mielan 71. A child we’d brought out of the Grash Akdap Pool at great risk so they could grow up in freedom. A child who had been trying to learn a new way. Dead. I rushed toward the smell, even as it overpowered me. It came from the bottom of the Pool, a horribly congealed mess half-stuck to the floor. My mind rebelled at the sight. There was no physical sign of injury, just a terrible sick wrongness. “Oh, shade and darkness,” said Generation Freedom behind me. “What do we do?”

“AWN was right,” I said. “I’m going to get Julian.” 

I swam to a terminal and urgently messaged Lourdes with the news. I waited at the surface until I saw the outlines of Lourdes’ chrome hand in the water, and the familiar welcoming shape of Julian’s ear. I squeezed inside, and immediately felt his sick horror at the situation. And his suspicion.

«We thought we were all just feeling unwell because of microbial contamination,» I said. «But…» I saw Julian’s memory of seeing Estrid out for a walk, not far from the Pool. It might not mean anything. She could have just been stretching her legs. Or…

«We can put it to the test,» Julian said. «The virus is supposed to keep Yeerks from being able to control hosts against our will, right? So try to do something that I don’t want to do.»

The thought made me feel even more ill. I was long past the time when I would force Julian to do anything. But I had to try it. I reached slowly into Kalysico’s bucket and pulled her out in a cupped hand. She did not struggle in my grip. I was flattered by her trust. Then I made to drop her into a cold, muddy puddle scummed over with glowing red fungus. 

Julian’s arm froze. The muscles all locked up. « _Ew_!» Kaly cried. «I don’t want to go in there! That’s disgusting!»

Against all my inclinations, and Kaly’s objections, I pressed on the motor nerves for Julian’s hand and tried to drop her again. Nothing happened.

«It’s true,» Julian breathed. «She did it. She infected the Aftran Plisam Pool with the virus. And it _works_.» I felt his amazement and his sick horror.

“Lourdes,” I said, to the Chee’s imposing hologram of a large predator, one huge leathery finger dipped in the Pool. “We need to talk to Estrid right now.”

“Several of your poolmates agree,” Lourdes said. “But we need an Andalite to talk to an Andalite. In my experience, they listen best to each other.”

Which left us no choice, really. Of the three Andalites here who weren’t Estrid, the only one we had any chance of convincing was Ax.

  


** Ax **

I tried to convince myself that Illim’s accusation could not be true. I failed.

Of course Estrid would not hesitate. We had already provided her with helpless captive test subjects. Why would she see any difference between the Yeerks we had brought her, destined to interrogate dissident _vecol_ children, and the Yeerks of the Aftran Plisam Pool, who had sworn never to infest a host against their will? Not long ago, I too had seen no distinction between one Yeerk and another.

I turned and stalked toward the _Ralek River_. «I will speak to her.»

Lourdes and Tidwell rushed to keep up with me, slogging through the mud. “We’re coming too!” Lourdes said. I ignored them. Let them come, or not come. This was personal between Estrid and me.

She was not on the first floor of the _Ralek River_. I ascended the drop shaft to the second floor, and the lab. Reluctantly, I waited for Lourdes to open it with her access. When I saw Estrid at her terminal in the lab, I burst in, tail forward. She had her tail up in an instant. I refrained from attacking her, but only barely. Instead I demanded, «What did you do to the Aftran Plisam Pool?!»

«If you are asking the question, then you know what I did,» Estrid said, too calmly. «Tell me what happened.»

Tidwell – or more likely, Illim – stepped forward, snarling, “Your virus _worked_ , at least on me. But one of our children is dead. How many more of us will die for your experiment?”

Estrid sneered. «I did not see you here when the Animorphs brought me a portable Pool for my experiments, Yeerk. Where was your righteous anger then?» Illim tightened Tidwell’s hands into fists and clenched his teeth. She flicked her fingers dismissively. «In any case, if the virus’s effects have fully taken hold, and you cannot coerce your host’s brain, then the infection has run its course. If no other Yeerks show signs of distress, then there will be no more deaths. How many Yeerks are in the Aftran Plisam Pool? Ninety? So if we assume a 70% infection rate – a low serial interval – one fatality – that is much lower than I had dared hope! Have any other Yeerks reported – »

I looked into her cold, distant eyes, and I saw myself. The arrogant child who believed he knew the order of the universe: Andalites on top, Yeerk scum at the bottom, and every other species in between. I saw that child in Estrid, and I wanted to kill her. I let out a _djafid_ scream of incoherent fury and charged her. I knocked her back against the terminal, but she came back swinging, tail up to block mine. In these close quarters, my larger blade gave me little advantage. But I was driven by unstoppable rage. 

I did not fight like an Andalite. I fought like every animal I had ever become. I struck with my tail, I kicked with my hooves, I hit her in the throat with my elbow, I even pulled one of her stalk eyes as hard as I could as she ducked a blow. She nearly tripped over her own lab instruments in her haste to get some distance from my barrage of attacks, yelling something about how I was a brute and a cheat. I finally pinned her against the wall with the weight of my entire body, my blade against her throat. Blood trickled down into my main eyes, blinding them. I breathed hard and ragged. Estrid’s main eyes blazed hatred into mine as her stalk eyes watched something past me. I turned one stalk eye around to see what it was.

Lourdes’s metal hand fell on my shoulder, heavy and cold. Illim squeezed Tidwell’s body between me and Estrid, grabbed hold of my tail, and pulled. My tail muscles were stronger than Tidwell’s arms, and I remained unmoved.

Illim turned Tidwell’s head toward me. He looked into me. Tidwell’s blue eyes were bright with tears. Illim said, his voice raspy, “Aximili, I have already seen two children die right before my eyes this week. Don’t make me witness a third.”

I relaxed my tail muscles and allowed him to pull it back. I stepped back from Estrid, and raised a hand to wipe the blood out of my main eyes. They quickly darkened with blood again. She had very nearly cut my eye-stalks off, and her near-miss had left a freely bleeding cut on my forehead. Estrid stepped gingerly away from the wall, too, watching Illim and Tidwell closely with her main eyes. The stalk eye I’d pulled dangled limply from her head like an uprooted vine. I quoted to her the words that had run ceaselessly through my mind since Illim and Tidwell brought me the news of her treachery, the words of the great medical ethicist Fandaray-Wouleen-Frodlin: «It is not possible to conceive of a greater evil than the deliberate killing of a child.» 

«How many children have _you_ killed, Aximili?» Estrid struck back. «You have fought a guerrilla war on Earth for years. I find it difficult to believe you have not committed this great evil yourself. And in your case, I imagine it would have been a _real_ child, not the spawn of enslaving scum.»

Illim snarled and poked her in the chest with an outstretched finger. Estrid’s uninjured stalk eye stretched upward in surprise at his boldness. “ _Spawn_?! Don’t you _dare_ talk about an innocent Yeerk child like that! And I won’t _ever_ hear you compare the Aftran Plisam Pool to a bunch of host-breakers brought in to break the minds of disabled human children! The Yeerks of my Pool have done something braver than you could ever imagine. We woke up to the evil of our Empire, the evil that earned us freedom and power, and we _left_. You Andalites don’t even have the grace to openly admit that you _are_ an Empire!”

«What was I supposed to do, Yeerk? A proper medical trial is meant to have hundreds of subjects. The Animorphs brought me almost none. Would you prefer the Animorphs to use a virus whose effectiveness I could not at least partially confirm?»

“You could have _asked_ us! Some of us would have _volunteered_ if you’d been honest – ”

«Do you seriously mean to suggest that any of you would have believed me – »

As Illim and Estrid argued, I grew. Finally, I grew large enough to attract their attention. Estrid cried out and slashed at me with her tail, but by then, it was too late. I had already grown the thick hide of an elephant, and her blows felt like little more than stings. Tidwell, Estrid, and Lourdes were pushed to the very edges of the lab, which was only just barely large enough to contain my bulk. Tidwell scrambled to save his dæmon’s bucket, set aside on the ground, from getting knocked over. Instruments and sample dishes crashed to the floor all around me. 

«Estrid,» I said. She glared up at me with hatred, and struck again. It hurt, but it didn’t matter. She would not have any morphs that could harm me. «Your murder and treachery ends. _Now._ » And I swept my trunk across the nearest lab bench, sending everything to the ground. 

She cried out in pain the way she hadn’t at any point during our fight. I grabbed lab equipment with my trunk and tore it out of the wall. Tidwell gasped in shock and fear. Estrid screamed and cried and begged for me to stop. I ignored all of it. If I could not kill Estrid, then I would destroy the place she used to commit her evil acts. I reached for the lab stasis chamber with my trunk, and suddenly found it in the grip of two powerful hands. It was not painful, but it was absolutely immobilizing, even against the elephant’s enormous strength.

I focused one dim elephant eye on Lourdes, and the hologram I had helped her construct. In all the turmoil, I had nearly forgotten she was there.

“That’s enough,” she said. “Estrid’s samples of the virus will be in there.”

All of the fight drained out of me. Lourdes was right. Even Estrid was right, in some small way. If the virus was effective, and had a low fatality rate, then we would have to declare it a success and use it. It would kill Yeerk children. But children on Earth and beyond were suffering and dying every day in the grip of the Yeerk Empire. They could not afford us waiting any longer.

I demorphed. Lourdes’s grip loosened on my trunk as it withered away. When I was myself again, I saw Estrid holding the ruins of some sort of spectrometer in her hands. She looked wrecked. She did not care about the death of a Yeerk child, but she did care about the death of her work that she loved so much. She would have nothing left to distract her from the horror of our current situation. She looked up at me, utterly betrayed.

«I was trying to test possible side effects of the virus,» she said. «I was trying to understand the consequences of this mad gambit, this impossible thing I promised to do. Now those experiments are lost. All of it, lost. Aximili, you cannot imagine – » She cut herself off. «Why? Why should I even bother to try?» With that, she dropped the broken instrument and ran out of the lab. As she opened the doors to flee, I saw Loren standing outside the lab, with Tobias on her shoulder. They rushed in as Estrid rushed out. 

Loren said, “Tobias had some kind of, uh, psychic vibration that you were in trouble? What’s going on, Ax?”

Tobias looked around at the destruction of the lab, Tidwell holding his dæmon’s bucket tight to his chest, then at me. «Hey, Ax,» he said softly. «Whatever happened – I’m – uh – I'm here for you. Why don’t you come with us?»

I stepped carefully over the broken glass. I circled my tail in an arc around Loren and Tobias, as if I could protect them from anything at all. «Please,» I said. «Take me away from here.»

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content notes: child murder, attempted child murder, body horror, gore, medical experimentation on unwilling subjects, non-fatal gun violence against a Black character, pandemic/virus horror


	6. Four Embraces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What is it that the child has to teach?
> 
> The child naively believes that everything should be fair and everyone should be honest, that only good should prevail, that everybody should have what they want and there should be no pain or sadness. The child believes the world should be perfect and is outraged to discover it is not.
> 
> And the child is right.”
> 
> — Rabbi Tzvi Freeman

** Paloma López and Buzo **

Lulú started barking, which was no reason to stop what I was doing, until I heard the sound of not one but two cars crunching the gravel outside the house, which was when I set aside my broom and stepped out into the courtyard. Lulú was still barking her head off, and Nahualli was up on her feet, ears pricked. Buzo buzzed from my arm to Nahualli’s ear and said, “Were we expecting company today?”

Nahualli flicked the ear Buzo wasn’t perched on. “If we were, you would know better than me, my love.”

“Tourists, then?”

“It’s the off-season!”

“You’re no help at all,” Buzo huffed, and flew up to the bougainvillea draping the walls of the courtyard, for all the world as if he were a real bumblebee. 

I don’t know what I was expecting, but it definitely wasn’t a Black man and an Asian woman with dog dæmons carefully pushing a mestizo boy and a white boy in wheelchairs up to the courtyard gate. I opened the gate and said carefully, “My English is no good. Can I help you?”

The Black man with the coyote dæmon said in fluent Mexican-accented Spanish, “I don’t think your English is so bad. But that won’t be a problem, señora. Do I have the pleasure of speaking to Doña Paloma López and Buzo?”

Buzo flew like an arrow back to the crook of my elbow. Nahualli came up behind me to stare at the strangers. It does make an impression on people when you have a cheetah dæmon by your side. I said cautiously, “Yes, I am the doña.”

“I am Luis Javier Turner and Zefirita,” the man said. “We have some important news about your family. May we come in?”

Every muscle in my body clenched at once. We had gotten the call six months ago from one of Eva’s college friends. _Peter and Marco have gone missing,_ she said. _Are they with you in Mexico?_ We checked the news online regularly to see if there were any new developments on the missing persons case. The numbing grief of losing even more of our family had already set in.

“Genaro!” Nahualli yowled. “Bring out the tea things! We have visitors!”

  


In the end, we had enough visitors to fill both the outer and inner courtyards, and I had to unfold the umbrellas to shade the children and their caretakers in the outer courtyard where the sun slanted in. My eyes nearly fell out of my head when I saw the caretakers lift the wheelchairs and their occupants up the step into the courtyard as if they weighed nothing. Genaro brought out enough chamomile tea for everyone, though only the children drank. The caretakers just helped the children with the tea as needed, and played delightedly with Lulú, who was in a high temper with all the exciting new visitors. We had a round of introductions, of which I forgot almost everything except Señor Turner, who I would have sworn to my mother was as Mexican as _mole_. “Don and Doña López,” he said. “I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your hospitality.”

He looked around significantly to the children, who chorused in Spanish, “Thank you, Don and Doña López!”

Zefirita wagged her tail in satisfaction. I smiled, but I reached out nervously for Genaro’s hand. On my shoulder, near my ear, Buzo murmured a prayer. He knew, as he so often did, that this was a turning point in our lives. A moment when everything would change, like the day we received that terrible phone call from our son-in-law.

Again, I don’t know what I was expecting. But it wasn’t for the four strange adults in our home to suddenly turn into robots.

Genaro gasped and yelled some words I would normally have scolded him for saying. Nahualli growled like an engine starting. Lulú barked fit to burst her little lungs. I crushed Genaro’s hand in mine, my jaw locked shut as Buzo buzzed in frantic, uncomprehending circles around the robot who had just been Señor Turner and Zefirita. Just as it looked like Nahualli might pounce, the robots turned back into people. I let go of Genaro’s hand and shot to my feet. I demanded, “What are you?”

“They’re robots from outer space,” the mestizo boy with the hedgehog dæmon, Julio, said in excellent Spanish. I realized suddenly that all of the children had been completely calm through this shocking display. 

“We have been on Earth for thousands of years,” said Señor Turner.

Zefirita looked up at Buzo. “Don Buzo,” she said, “you remind me of my years living here under the Mayan Emperors. The people worshipped the Diving God, who was also the god of the bees that made honey for their sweet drinks.”

I sat back down slowly. “I know,” Buzo said. “That’s why I chose this name. We learned about the Diving God at university, and we saw his symbols when we worked on a dig near Chichen Itzá…” Out of the side of my vision, I saw Nahualli sniffing the ground near Señor Turner and Zefirita, as if she might find some scent-clue of their true nature.

“I remember,” Señor Turner said. “Back then, I looked like this.” In the blink of an eye he became a Mayan woman, bare-chested, wearing a long yellow skirt with a red sash around the waist, a yellow viper dæmon draped across her shoulders. Some of the children giggled at her half-nakedness. I did not. I stared at the skirt. 

Genaro murmured in my ear exactly what I was thinking. “There is a skirt like that on display at the National Museum of Anthropology.”

The Mayan woman turned back into Señor Turner. I sagged back in my chair. “Why are you here?” I whispered. “Why did you bring these children? What does this have to do with our family?”

“Don and Doña López,” Señor Turner said. “I need you to listen to this recording.” A tape recorder appeared in his hand out of nowhere. He pressed the play button. And I heard the most impossible thing that had happened that day. I heard my daughter’s voice.

“Mami, Papi, it’s me, Eva,” she said in a voice half-choked with tears. “It is the year 2000. I am not dead. Mami, Papi, I am so, _so_ sorry. Please forgive me. It was not my choice to disappear. I would never, ever have done this to you.”

Señor Turner hit the pause button as I wailed into Genaro’s arms. He held me close and said to Señor Turner in a tight, raspy voice, “How is this possible?”

The robot who called himself Señor Turner and Zefirita explained to us about the Yeerk Empire. A conquering force from beyond the stars who had come to enslave the minds of all of humanity. Their military leader, Visser One, who had chosen our daughter as her personal slave, and faked her death so she could steal her away to her spaceship. Who Eva had finally killed, but had chosen to go back into the mouth of Hell, with a Yeerk ally in her head, to pretend to be her former slaver. None of this shocked the children either. They merely whispered to each other and accepted help with their tea from their robot attendants as Genaro and I cried and clutched at each other.

“And she didn’t…” I gasped out between sobs. Buzo had crawled inside my dress, buzzing comfortingly between my breasts. “She didn’t tell us.”

“She couldn’t,” Señor Turner said. “Sending a message to you could have put you at great risk and exposed her cover. We wouldn’t have come here at all if our need weren’t so great. We, the Chee, and these children are all on the run from the Yeerks. We don’t know where else to go for help.” He pressed play on the cassette player again.

Eva said, “The Chee, the robots playing this message for you, and the children, are all in great danger. The childrenare in danger because of a decision I made. I owe them a debt. I hope you can help me repay it. The Chee can take care of their physical and medical needs. But you can give them a home.”

Eva’s quiet resolve helped me see the situation from her perspective, instead of my motherly anguish. I looked around at the children. They looked uncomfortable. I couldn’t blame them. They were witness to a very personal family moment. But they also looked hollow-eyed and lost. I didn’t need Eva to convince me that it was my duty as a Christian to help them in any way I could.

“What about Marco and Peter?” said Genaro.

“They are also alive,” Señor Turner said. I screamed into Genaro’s chest and rocked against him. Learning that the family I had lost was not lost after all somehow hurt just as much as losing them in the first place. “Peter and his new wife have recently been moved to an army barracks to hide from the Yeerks. Marco is in hiding in an underground cave.”

I had so many more questions. But they could wait. My daughter had made a request from beyond the grave, and I had to honor it.I straightened up to look into my husband’s eyes. Buzo buzzed out of my dress to land between Nahualli’s ears. “I know you don’t like strangers,” I began.

Genaro put a finger to my lips. “Shhh. So long as they don’t go in our bedroom or the study, I am okay with people staying here. It will give me a new home improvement project, making everything so the wheelchairs can move around.”

“But we can’t possibly take in all of them,” I said.

“Oh, come on,” Genaro said. “You know our friends from church would help. Lupe still has her house set up for her son with multiple sclerosis, God keep him. Maria Luna is a nurse, isn’t she? And her boyfriend has a donkey dæmon, so she always arranges her house so she can walk around… And of course Lucho and Silvia will help the moment they hear that recording.”

“Lucho. Oh, God. We need to get him over here.” Eva’s older brother would need to know right away. 

I let go of Genaro and threw myself at Señor Turner, or whatever he was, with open arms. He felt just like a normal human as I embraced him and kissed his cheeks. “Welcome to Querétaro, Mexico. Robots, children, all of you. And Señor Turner? Genaro and I have _so many questions_ about the Mayan Empire!”

  


** Mertil **

I fed next to Estrid in the food patch of the _Ralek River_ and pretended I was singing to myself, even as she pretended to be feeding. It was a song to soothe a frightened civilian, not one I would have ever sung for myself, but then again, Estrid was barely even trying to crush the grass beneath her hooves, so neither of us was putting up more than the flimsiest pretense for her pride. After Gonrod and I had found her, muddy and exhausted and heartsick, in an eerie glowing red pool, we had quickly discovered that this was the only comfort she would accept from either of us, and Gonrod was no _djafid_ singer.

I thought of all the times I had told Gafinilan that I preferred the seclusion of the _vecol_ to the responsibility of the _tzeraf_ and thought, _Oh, Gafinilan. If only you could see me now._ _Singing peace to a girl who only started calling me by name after I lent her a radio._

«I wish to be alone,» Estrid said suddenly. She darted back toward her quarters as if chased.

I called after her, «I will not allow him to attack you again.»

«I do not need your protection,» Estrid sneered, closing her quarters' doors with a snap behind her. I inhaled deeply and decided I needed an Ixilan  _ tzeraf _ tale to commemorate my patience.

I reached out to the medbay with my thought-speech and spoke to Loren. «You may bring him out to the feeding area now.»

Aximili came in half-leaning on Loren, his stalk eyes swaying with the sedative we had used to calm him after his rampage. I could tell the sedative was wearing off – after a lifetime of assembling custom medkits for myself, I have become a decent field medic. I helped her ease him to a comfortable resting position in the grass. «He will fully wake soon. I imagine you will wish to embrace him. Do not do this, not in the way you humans do with one another. You may know this already, Loren, but for us, a close frontal embrace is a sexual act, and not appropriate with a family member. If he is receptive, it may be proper to press palms with him. To us, the palm is the point of contact for one life-force to meet another.»

“I’m fine with that,” Loren said, nervously twisting her fingers round and round her dæmon’s horn. “It’s just that I don’t know what to _say_ in a situation like this.”

Under normal military circumstances, I would have told Aximili that he was suspended from duty pending a court-martial. Needless to say, these were not normal circumstances. I said nothing.

Loren chewed on the edges of her mouth with her blunt square teeth. Tobias flew in from the medbay and landed near Aximili. He said, «Where’s Estrid?»

«I think it is best if I do not disclose this information,» I said.

Loren stopped her disturbing mouth movements. “Yeah. Yeah. You’re right, Mertil. Let’s let her be.” She sat in the grass next to her _taf ratheen_ , crossing her legs in a way I had seen humans do in children’s television programs.

I tucked my legs, too, and knelt down in the grass with enough distance back from Aximili that he could easily raise his tail or run off if he chose to.

With so many people gathering around him, Aximili woke, his spine tense. It relaxed a little when he registered who we were. He did not lift his tail from where it lay in the grass like a dry, fallen vine. «Is Estrid here?» he said in a very small voice.

«No,» I said.

«If you are here to reprimand me for – » Aximili began, but Tobias cut him short.

« _No_ , Ax. We’re here for you. No one’s going to reprimand you.» 

I was most certainly going to reprimand him later, but I could tell that doing so now would not have the desired effect.

«But I – » Aximili protested.

“She made the God-damned virus,” Loren said, as her dæmon snorted and tossed his head not unlike an Andalite might. “She doesn’t need the lab anymore. None of us want her doing any more of her experiments. If you ask me, you did us all a favor.”

I bristled, but I said nothing. Loren had not seen the aftermath with Estrid. She did not yet understand.

«That is not what I meant,» the boy said miserably. «I tried to kill her. I might have, if Illim and Tidwell hadn't stopped me.»

Tobias stared in the way of his Earth bird form. Loren studied him, her face creasing. "Are you going to try to hurt her again?" she said.

«No. I can see now that I hurt her when what I really wanted to hurt was my entire planet. That is not the way I should comport myself.»

"Okay," Loren said. "I believe you."

«Also, if you attempt to attack her again, Gonrod and I will stop you,» I said matter-of-factly, because I was not sure that I believed him.

All of the coiled nervous tension drained out of Aximili, and he looked like nothing more than a lost child. He looked at me plaintively with his main eyes. «Mertil, how do you _live_ like this? Knowing our supposed honor is a lie?»

I had been prepared for this question, after I had learned what Estrid had done. It was one I had faced before. «I believe you have two choices, Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill. You can reject the code of honor you have been taught as the cover for senseless brutality that it is, and build yourself on some new bedrock. That was my choice. I built myself anew on a code more similar to that of my _shorm_ ’s people, the Ixilan. You have that choice, as close as you have come to other cultures in this life that you lead. Or you can decide that even if no other Andalite truly believes in the warrior’s code of honor, you will be the one who does. The choice is yours.»

Aximili shook his head in a human gesture of denial. «It is too much, Mertil. I cannot – I – » He shook all over, as if cold or ill. 

Loren offered her blunt human hand to him, palm up. Aximili rested his palm atop hers, and her hand curled gently around his. Tobias found a few bits of grass and mud in the fur along Aximili’s back and groomed them away with his wicked beak, never nicking the skin. I offered a _djafid_ meant to guide the spirit of a warrior burdened by the terrible things he had done.

«You’re not the only Andalite to say no to this,» Tobias said. «Aldrea said no to Alloran’s quantum virus. Elfangor said no to Alloran when he wanted to kill a Pool of helpless Yeerks.»

«And they could not bear it,» Aximili concluded. «Neither of them could bear to be Andalites anymore. They fled. But I cannot.» His main eyes met mine. He blinked rapidly, ashamed. «No. I can, if I choose to. But I will not. I remain Andalite. I bear the weight of what we — what I —have done.»

  


** Tidwell **

When Illim put out the call for volunteers, a dozen Yeerks came to his call. I dropped Kalysico in the Pool to swim among them, reached into the Pool sludge, and cupped my hands around them, one at a time. The first one I picked I found very small, and Kaly breached the surface of the Pool to say, “That’s one of the Mielan grubs. Maybe they want to thank us for telling them our story.”

I focused on the little Yeerk in my hands, the smooth slime and the palps wriggling curiously into the lines in my palm. I hoped the mud on my hands didn’t bother them too much – I’d tried to wipe it off, but there was no getting away from the mud in this place. The Yeerk child went calm and still between my hands for a moment, then I let them go. Another Yeerk came to replace them. I wish I could say I knew just by touch which one was Illim, but I didn’t. All of the adult Yeerks felt the same to me. 

When no new Yeerks swam into my hands, I focused on the image of a Yeerk in my mind. Cassie had explained to me that if I just pictured a generic Yeerk instead of a specific one, then all the Yeerk DNA I’d acquired would randomly combine to form a new, unique morph. That was easy to do, since I couldn’t really tell one Yeerk from another anyway. 

“Are you ready, Sai?” I said. 

“I am.” The SymbiontAI, their plain badge showing they had no Yeerk in their head, projected a twisted little half-smile. “You’re lucky, you know. I wish I could join the Pool, too.”

I shrugged a little. Sai made me a little uneasy, though they had never been anything but polite and helpful to me. I turned my focus back to the image of the Yeerk in my mind. Then the changes began.

I wanted the changes very much, but they still frightened me. I began to shrink, falling and falling, and it was just as scary as it had been when I’d morphed the hawk, and this time without Illim to comfort me. My arms and legs melted together, and I flopped onto my front in the strange-smelling red-streaked mud. Palps exploded out of the front of my face, long and worm-like, and I would have screamed if my mouth hadn’t been melting shut. My organs liquefied and sloshed inside my body, and cold slime filled my eyes and nose and ears.

Then came the desiccation. The air! All along my back! It would dry me to a crisp! I wriggled deeper into the wet mud, trying to get away from the horrible, sucking dryness. Then a huge hand closed around me and pulled me out of the small comfort of the mud. I wriggled and thrashed helplessly in its grip. Then it dropped me into sweet, blessed relief.

The Pool. The Pool. I was home. I relaxed and fired my sonar to find my fellow Yeerks.

They were all around me, young and old, their feel-fields crackling excitement and curiosity. They were talking. Really talking, not like Illim’s reconstructions and memories of Yeerkish in my mind. There were so many of them talking at once I couldn’t understand any of it. It was nothing like when Kalysico went for a swim in the Pool. Her senses were attuned to a clear, shallow ocean, not a Yeerk Pool, and she couldn’t properly see or smell anything. Both of us could take it all in.

I tried to speak. “Hello?” But it came out a harsh mess. The Yeerks around me went quiet when they heard me. I tried again. “Hello?”

“Hello!” said a child, followed by a strange jumble of squeaks I couldn’t understand. 

I gathered all of my courage. Maybe I wasn’t making much sense, but I was their guest, and there were protocols that needed to be followed. “To your shore I have come, Aftran Plisam Pool,” I said. “Purify me so I may keep your waters fresh.”

I heard the strange jumble of squeaks again, the same one the child had said, then, “Come here.” I knew that voice. It was the only voice in my head besides Kalysico that mattered. I swam toward it. Illim stretched himself out, flat as a pancake, and enveloped me. He wrapped himself all around me like a blanket, coating me in his slime. I guess to a human, that would seem pretty gross. But as a Yeerk at that moment, and as someone who loved Illim as much as I did, it felt like a tender embrace. Like I was being welcomed into a new home by someone who had been waiting for me.

Illim let me go. I swam backward a bit so I could fire my sonar and have a good look at him. There was something special about seeing his face and being able to recognize, through Yeerk senses, what made it unique: a shiny reflective patch on the underside, a left palp slightly longer than his right. I repeated the strange jumble of squeaks back to him. “What does it mean?”

His feel-fields purred with amusement. He wasn’t the only Yeerk laughing. “That’s how we say your name.”

“Oh! You came up with a name for me!”

“Of course I did! Julian, come meet Eslin 825 – you know, Firtips. It’s not proper for you to be purified just by _my_ slime.”

I didn’t get the chance to meet as many of Illim’s pool-fellows as I would have liked. I’d heard so much about them, and met a few of them riding along with Sai. But I was here for a reason, after all. The time had come for the funeral.

All the Yeerks gathered around a small shape lying on the floor of the Yeerk Pool. Sai had found some plastic wrap on the _Ralek River_ and wrapped up Mielan 71 tightly, so they could return to the Pool for the funeral without contaminating the water. I fired my sonar and saw the slick, impervious texture of the plastic wrapped around the misshapen little body. 

“In the Empire Pools,” Illim told me quietly, his feel-fields buzzing solemnly, “Gedd-Controllers come and take away corpses for burial in a small Pool for that purpose. They drop a stone or metal token shaped like the Yeerk into the Pool, so we can gather around a symbol of the dead and pay respects.”

Eslin 825 swam out from the crowd toward the body. “Back in the Sulp Niar Pool of the homeworld,” they said, “there was a special plant called _kedsit_. _Kedsit_ grew pods it could use to engulf creatures that swam up against it when it was hungry. The Yeerks knew to avoid touching the _kedsit_ , of course. But they also knew it had its purpose. When one of us died, the body would be brought to the _kedsit_ and fed to a pod. That way the Yeerk would not make the Pool sick with their death, but rather nourish the _kedsit_ , which ate the tiny stinging pool-mites that brought pain and suffering to the living. Yeerks could come to the _kedsit_ where their loved ones had been returned to the life cycle of the Pool, and dance around it, and remember.

“We don’t have the _kedsit_ anymore. We have lost the natural life-cycle of the Pool. I hope one day we can have it back, or maybe create some new version of it. When we are done here, Sai will bring Mielan 71 to a pool, where the Living Hive will protect it from being eaten by the Taxxons, and they will become part of the life-cycle here. But for now, we can imagine a _kedsit_ growing where this little one lies, and gather around, and remember.

“Who would like to speak first? Akdor’s Worst Nightmare? Of course. Come here, AWN.”

The caretaker spoke about how Mielan 71 had worked very hard to learn about other species and how to treat them better, and was always willing to admit when they had gotten something wrong. Another grub in the creche, Mielan 182, spoke in a shaky little voice about how Mielan 71 had been their best friend and the nicest person ever. Margoth, a newcomer who had recently come to Aftran Plisam from the Campsite Rule, talked about how Mielan 71 had been so open and curious with the newcomers, wanting to learn all about their lives.

Then Green Sky, one of Illim’s friends in the Peace Movement, came forward to speak. “All of you in this Pool who voted for the virus – I hope this death stirs the waters of your conscience. And I hope your guilt spurs you to action. This Andalite scientist cannot be trusted, and our child’s death proves it. We cannot let her atrocities play out on an even larger scale. How many more dead children can we tolerate? Not. One. More.”

“And how are we supposed to do that, tough guy?” called Filshig Traitor, another Yeerk Illim had introduced me to. “We don’t have hosts! We can’t do _dapsen_!”

“There has to be _something_ ,” Green Sky raged. “We can’t just sit here and let this happen! We have to _act_! Who’s with me?”

Feel-fields crackled and zapped all around me. It was a rising tide of fury and excitement. But beside me, Illim’s feel-fields went numb and cold. “Let’s go, Julian,” he said. “I don’t think I want to be here anymore.”

  


  


** Aftran **

_Ping_.

We had programmed the terminal’s message notification sounds. I knew what that _ping_ meant.

I prodded Eva’s brain out of her dream and opened her eyes.

«It’s the sound that means the Animorphs,» I said. «We have to read it.»

I staggered out of bed, leaning on Mercurio for support. I opened the message and entered the code to decrypt it as Eva struggled to catch up with me mentally.

  


_ The plan is to deploy the weapon at the Santa Barbara Pool in two days. Our scientist says if you bring at least twenty Controllers up to the Pool Ship a week from then, the virus will come with them. Make plans. _

I sat staring at the message, committing it to Eva’s memory the way only a Yeerk can. Then I deleted it with extreme prejudice. In Eva’s thoughts, I saw it. A vague notion of many hosts around the Pool, in the voluntary area and in cages, and some strange deep humming rising up from the Pool sludge. It took me a moment to even recognize what she was thinking of. I would have laughed if it didn’t make me so sick.

«The Psaarig,» I said. «You’re thinking the Psaarig.»

«It’s the perfect excuse,» Eva said. «Everyone who’s everyone will be there. Even Visser Five can’t miss it, can he? Of course we’ll bring up people from planetside.»

I thought about the solemn majesty of the Psaarig. The clearing out of a space in the center of the Pool. The call for volunteers, who would swim to the center of the Pool to be considered. When the _dekvel_ were chosen, the great celebration, to give the _dekvel_ a feast of life to enjoy before they gave their lives to create new ones.

«It’s a sacred ceremony, Eva.» I said. «One of the few holy things we have left.»

«It’s war, Aftran,» Eva said bitterly. «Nothing can be holy. Not anymore.» 

I couldn’t blame Eva for her bitterness, not when Edriss had desecrated everything good in her life. But I kept thinking of Yeerks unknowingly passing the bioweapon one to another even as they celebrated the one thing the Empire still let us enjoy in our own bodies, as ourselves. I felt small and pathetic, imagining the Yoorts I’d met, Zhakdud, Ushmyerg, and Yehyulu, and how grand and beautiful the Psaarigs they attended would be. How barren and sad they would find the Psaarigs of the Empire, our last great joy.

As I wallowed in grief and self-loathing, Eva took the reins of the body, making up a guest list to invite over to the Pool Ship for the Psaarig. When I dragged myself out of my dark reverie, I scanned the list and found it mostly as I expected. But one name stood out. «Efdram 58? How are we supposed to justify that? She’s not even a Sub-Visser.»

«She’s the host-breaker who tamed Michelle Clark, rebellious mother of an Animorph,» Eva said. «Having Michelle up here in a cage makes a statement.»

«And gives you a chance to free her,» I said. «Fine, you can sneak one in.»

«Thanks, _Mother_ ,» Eva thought, with a pang for her mother, who by now would know from the Chee that Eva was alive. She sent off the guest list, then leaned against Mercurio, rubbing her eye with the heel of her hand. Mercurio tucked a bit of hair behind her ear with his beak with a little _krek_ sound in his throat. «Ugh. Can you get me to sleep again?»

«Not yet,» I said, poking around her brain. «You need time to wind down. Stretch your legs.»

«We could check on Sky Hive,» Eva said. «The stats on the Taxxons in Storage Bay Three look promising – meat consumption is down, what, fifteen percent? I’ve been wondering how the little squirt pulled it off.»

«I don’t know how relaxing that’ll be,» I said dryly, «but hell, why not.»

We walked to Storage Bay Three. Eva put the filter face mask by the door over her nose and mouth. She pressed her hand to the lock and went in.

It was unrecognizable. 

The entire vast storage bay was covered in a layer of mud streaked with the Hive’s red luminescence. It spilled out in heaps from the hot-tub sized tank, forming mounds and mud-puddles all over the floor, climbed up the walls like dirty moss, and hung in drips from the ceiling. Everywhere, Taxxons ate the mud, soaked in the mud-puddles, and climbed the walls as easily as if they were house centipedes. It was like walking into an underground cave.

As Eva and I stood gawking, the mud around her ankles and Mercurio’s feet sucked and _pulled_. The face mask muffled her scream as she fell on her back. Mercurio screeched, falling to his front. Both human and dæmon were pulled by a sucking force toward the tub, then fell in with a _shlorp_. Eva grabbed onto Mercurio, more capable in the liquid, and he guided her up to the surface to gasp in air as best she could through the mask.

«QUEEN!» Sky Hive rumbled all around us. The neck-deep mud in the tub vibrated and bubbled. The Taxxons hissed along in sympathy. Eva shivered, and not just from the cool mud. «THE YEERK PROTECTORS LIED TO US! THEY SAID THEY WOULD EASE OUR TAXXONS’ HUNGER. THEY GIVE OUR TAXXONS MORE FOOD, BUT HERE IN THE SKY, FAR FROM ANY HIVE, THEY ARE HUNGRIER AND SICKER THAN EVER BEFORE! EXPLAIN THIS DISGRACE!»

«Holy mother of God,» Eva thought, her grip tightening around Mercurio’s neck as she looked around at the dozens of angry Taxxons in this strange slice of their homeworld in space. Already, she was coming up with possibilities about what this could mean for taking over the ship from the Empire. «We had better come up with a good explanation. Come on, Aftran, _morph_.»

I focused on my least favorite morph. Edriss 562. My connection with Eva’s brain broke for a second as my body rearranged itself a little. Then I said to Sky Hive in private thought-speech, «I can’t explain it. It’s wrong. The Yeerks lied so they could get Taxxons to volunteer to help them. But I won’t lie to you, Sky. I haven’t lied to you.» 

I felt Eva’s discomfort. No, we hadn’t lied to ver, technically. But there was a lot we hadn’t said, that we still weren’t saying. Would we be so much better for Sky and the Taxxons than the Empire Yeerks before me? All I could do was believe that the Taxxon-Controllers of the Peace Movement would make sure we were. «So believe me when I say that I am going to change this. I am going to make it right for the Taxxons. But I’m going to need your help.»

The glowing fungal mud tightened all around Eva and Mercurio in a strange, wet alien embrace. «OH MY QUEEN, I KNEW YOU WOULD KNOW WHAT TO DO! TELL ME HOW TO HELP AND I WILL DO IT RIGHT NOW!»

«No! Wait!» I blurted. «Not right now, Sky! We have to wait until the right moment. Like, uh – you have seasons on your planet, right? Things have to happen in their right season, don’t they?»

The mud seethed and bubbled. «MY TAXXONS CANNOT WAIT AN ENTIRE SEASON!»

«They won’t have to,» I promised. «It will be sooner than a season. But please, wait until my signal. It’ll be…» I waited for Eva to fill in with an idea.

«We’re going to have to make our move, once enough of the ship is infected, but before total chaos ensues,» Eva thought. «If Sky Hive can move out of this storage bay… think of what ve could do with whatever ve did to us when we came in.»

«Sky, do you think you could make the whole ship look like this storage bay? Could you… spread out?»

«YES! I WOULD VERY MUCH LIKE TO DO THIS, MY QUEEN. IT WOULD BE GOOD FOR THE TAXXONS. BUT I NEED MORE FOOD! THE TAXXONS ARE GIVEN ALL MEAT, WHICH IS NOT GOOD FOR THEIR INTERNAL BALANCE OR FOR MINE. THEY NEED LESS MEAT AND MORE SOIL IN HERE!»

«I’m starting to get a sinking feeling about what this stuff is made of,» Mercurio said miserably, watching luminescent mud drip from his beak. 

«Impossible to get more dirt from the Taxxon homeworld on short notice, and it’s been very expensive to haul in,» Eva calculated. «But getting dirt up from Earth would be even easier than meat. It’d be an overall savings. I just hope Sky and the Taxxons can eat it.»

«I will bring you all of the soil you and your Taxxons need,» I said. «Keep everything in here, for now. Build your strength. I will tell you when it’s time to expand to the rest of the ship. The signal will be my secret name. The one you asked me for. I will announce it for everyone on the ship to hear. That’s how you’ll know. Then this whole ship will be ours. A Living Hive in the sky. But Sky? Until I say my name, you must keep this a secret.»

«I WILL TRY,» Sky said dubiously. «BUT I MUST TELL MY TAXXONS THAT THEY CAN HAVE HOPE.»

«Yes, Sky. Of course you can tell them that.» Unexpectedly, I found Eva’s eyes welling with tears. I didn’t bother to suppress them. No one on the ship would be able to tell she’d been crying anyway, with all the gunk on her face. 

Sky Hive sent us careening back out of the tub toward the door. We smacked against it. Mercurio got up first, then Eva, both totally brown and red with mud. The Taxxons hissed in what I recognized as a laugh. Eva opened the door and staggered out, trailing muck on the floor outside. She took off the face mask and hung it up, leaving one perfectly clean area around her nose and mouth.

«Once we have a shower,» Eva declared, «we are going to sleep like the _dead_.»

«Wait,» I said. «If we're going to tell Sky Hive our names as a signal, how is ve going to understand us? The comms on the Pool Ship don't transmit thought speech.»

Eva shrugged. «Ve understands the Taxxons, right? We'll just have to say it in their language. The Animorphs have Taxxon allies. We can just ask them.»

«You're going to learn to speak Taxxon,» I said. «Just like that.»

Eva scrubbed ineffectually at the mud on her face with the heel of her hand. «I learned English and Mandarin. English is a mess and Mandarin has _tones_. Two sentences in Taxxon can't be _that_ bad.»


	7. Eight Voices of the Sick

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “To actually reckon with the reality, one would not have to feel a simple ‘unseemliness’ in defending the bombings, but a deep and tormenting perversity. Again, that isn’t to exclude the possibility of making the ‘better than the alternative’ argument. It is merely to say that in order to make an argument justifying the obliteration of 100,000 civilians, slight discomfort will not do. If the utilitarian case is ever to be made, it must be made through tears.”  
> – from the essay “How to Justify Hiroshima” by Nathan J. Robinson

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content notes at the end. Shout-out to Joysweeper's fic [So this is the world](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25230433) for inspiring some story elements here.

** Cassie **

“…supposed to just be _Taxxon backup_! Cassie doesn’t _have_ to do this alone!” 

“The more people we have going in, the more risk we take on, the more people we have to evac…”

I turned away from the group and started walking. I couldn’t listen to Rachel and Jake argue about this anymore. Quincy flew from Diamanta’s side, landed on my shoulder, and said in my ear, “Dia offered for her and Marco to come along, if you want company.”

I shook my head and kept walking. “I’ve had enough talk. I need to clear my head.” 

Quincy launched from my shoulder again and wove around me, echolocating. “I’m not sure Marco was offering to _talk_ , exactly…”

“I don’t want to _not-talk_ either,” I grumbled. The mud sucked at my feet. I rubbed at the muck on my face with the equally dirty heel of my hand. “Ugh. I need to morph. I can’t be a human down here anymore. This place isn’t _for_ humans.”

“Mole?” Quincy suggested.

“What if a Taxxon eats us?”

“Taxxon?”

“Huh, maybe mole isn’t so bad.”

«Cassie,» said a voice in my head. I jumped and turned around. It was Estrid, out on a walk like me. She looked as filthy as I felt, and she held her tail low, like Ax did when he didn't feel so great about himself. «When do you go on your mission?»

Quincy flapped a loose circle around Estrid, scanning. I slumped on my feet. Somehow I’d managed to walk into the one conversation I wanted even less than Jake and Rachel’s argument. “Tomorrow.”

«Good,» Estrid said, one stalk-eye tracking Quincy. «Then there is still time.» She took a step toward me, sloshing through a puddle, and pinned me with her main eyes. «Do not do this. Destroy the virus. Find some other way to win this war.»

My jaw dropped. Quincy flew back to me and settled in my cupped hand. “ _What_? Estrid, you _made_ this virus! What are you talking about?”

«I have been thinking a lot since Aximili destroyed my lab,» Estrid said. «I have had nothing to do _but_ think. Ever since I left on Arbat’s doomed mission to this world, I distracted myself in the lab. Used the clarity of my science to banish all doubts.»

“Reminds me of Marco,” Quincy whispered to me. I shivered.

«I thought about the nature of this virus. All viruses mutate, and especially so an engineered quantum virus with inadequate time for genome stability testing. This virus will have consequences that not even I can foresee. I engineered it to the best of my ability, but I am just a single girl in a single lab at the fringes of known space. The virus will change in ways we do not expect. You would be better off using a weapon whose outcomes you can be certain of. Like a Shredder cannon.» 

“We don’t _have_ any Shredder cannons, Estrid,” I said wearily. “Except the one on the _Ralek River_.”

«Then find one of your human weapons,» Estrid urged. «Anything but this.»

“What about your glory?” I snapped. “What about proving yourself? Isn’t that why you experimented on all those Yeerks? So you could prove you were right, that you could do this?”

Estrid sneered. «This is the same line you used to manipulate me into doing this in the first place. What did you say they would call me? “The Girl Genius?” Yes, Cassie. You were right. I crave recognition. But it was the next thing you said that truly convinced me. You told me that if I released my original, killer virus, they would call me “The Evil Bitch.” That argument was more effective than you could have known, human. There is something you don’t know about me. Something no one but Arbat knew. It has been much on my mind since my lab was destroyed. You must know the story of the quantum virus deployed on the Hork-Bajir homeworld, living among the Hork-Bajir like you did.»

I nodded, my lower lip pinned between my teeth.

Estrid took another step toward me. Her dark brown eyes were like pits in the dimness of the Living Hive. «My father did that.»

I breathed in sharply and clutched Quincy to my chest. Her father. Alloran-Semitur-Corass. Butcher of the Hork-Bajir. Host of Visser Five. She’d never said anything, not even when her father had just been killed by his brother – by her uncle, Arbat. But of course she wouldn’t. Why would she tell us, when we had never given her any reason to trust us or confide in us? 

_How many things could have been different,_ Quincy thought, _if we had only treated her as a friend instead of an enemy?_

“You experimented on them too,” I said through numb lips. “You cloned Toby.”

«Yes. Another shining entry into the Girl Genius portfolio of accomplishments I was building on my lab computer. That was the experiment I would have done to make a better virus, one that would make the Hork-Bajir uninfestable instead of dead. I thought I would prove myself better than my father!» Estrid said bitterly. «That was when I thought the Yeerk virus was going all according to plan. Back when I was sure I would get it right, and go from triumph to triumph. And now Aximili smashed it all to pieces. No matter. It would have all been smashed to pieces anyway, in the eyes of the Andalite public.» She must have caught some flash of pity on my face, because she said, «What? Have you never wished to be a hero, human? To be something greater than you were told to be? From what little I have seen, your people have no more regard for young females than mine do.»

“Yes,” I whispered. “I have.” 

_We can’t have done anything as bad as Estrid while fighting this war,_ Quincy said. _We can’t._ But a litany ran through my mind: the Yeerks we boiled to death at the hospital. David. The Howlers. On and on.

«I did not test the virus on that Pool in order to prove myself,» Estrid said. «I did it because it was the only moral option.» When I recoiled, Estrid went on, «Medical trials are supposed to have hundreds of subjects. You brought me _eleven_. I do not have state-of-the-art technology. I am in a portable lab that has not seen proper maintenance in an Earth year. My father was roundly condemned as a monster, and he at least had a team of scientists working to ensure his virus would not jump from one species to another. To give you a practically untested virus that could mutate in unforeseen ways – that would have been an act of hubris and monstrosity beyond anything my father did.»

“It works,” I said. “A bunch of other Yeerks besides Illim tried it out. They’ve all been changed. They can’t force-infest people anymore. Only one of them died. I would have thought you’d be happy.” 

«Cassie, biological weapons are a monstrosity,» Estrid said, relentless. «I have done a monstrous thing, and you are about to make it worse. My people will still call me “The Evil Bitch.” And unless you put a stop to this, your people will call you the same.»

“And if we lose,” I whispered, “then your fleet will come and destroy this planet. And no one will call us anything at all.”

All the fight drained out of Estrid. She looked old and young all at once, like Jake looked sometimes. _She dumped the virus in the Aftran Plisam Pool without asking,_ Quincy said, eyeing her with disgust. _She got a Yeerk child killed._

_She did,_ I thought. _I feel sorry for her anyway._

“Hey,” I said softly, reaching out the hand that wasn’t holding Quincy. “I know Andalites don’t do hugs, but uh – do you want, uh – whatever version of a hug is okay for you?”

Estrid turned her hand palm-up and spread her fingers out. Then she pressed her hand to mine, just for a moment. It was like a high-five, but without the violent impact. Her fingers were delicate against my calloused hand. Then she stepped back. She had said her piece.

I was going to release the virus tomorrow anyway.

  


  


I’ve gotten a little more used to morphing with an audience – an audience besides the other Animorphs, and that didn’t count because we’ve seen each other do so many awful disgusting things it doesn’t matter anymore. I’ve morphed in front of free Hork-Bajir, both of my parents, even enemy Yeerks. But the feeling of getting ready to morph in front of this audience, at this moment, felt like I was about to tear my ribcage open in front of witnesses. No, like I was about to tear someone else’s ribcage open. An audience for my crimes.

Arbron had to be there, because he was our guide to the Yeerk Pool through the Living Hive’s tunnels. I understood why Mr. Tidwell was there, to say goodbye to Illim and wish him the best. But I didn’t understand why a handful of Taxxons, and worse, Gonrod and Mertil, were here to watch this. 

At least Estrid was nowhere in sight. 

Mr. Tidwell opened his eyes. “I’m ready,” Illim said.

I looked at the other Animorphs. Mud squishing beneath Abineng’s hooves as he shifted impatiently. Tobias, just barely holding Rachel’s hand, the way Estrid had just barely brushed my hand with hers. His eyes were on her, but Elhariel’s were on Ax, who looked stiff and dried out like a dead bug. Jaxom stood under him like a baby deer next to its mother, while Loren chewed on the split ends of her hair and stared into nothing as if she were blind again. Diamanta weaved complex patterns over Marco’s body as he watched Jake with the slightly constipated expression of a boy who desperately wants to show affection but has too many hang-ups in the way. Dia looked at me as if to weigh her options, like maybe I was a safe stand-in for what she really wanted. And Jake? Jake just looked gutted, holding Merlyse against his chest with one hand.

I saw Jake and Merlyse, and I knew Jake had argued with Rachel so hard because he’d been arguing against a part of himself that was saying the exact same thing. That it wasn’t right for the rest of the Animorphs to be waiting in the wings as backup. That I shouldn’t have to do this with just Illim.

“Hey,” I told them, tucking Quincy up the sleeve of my shirt. “Put your dæmons away.”

Merlyse climbed down into the front pocket of Jake’s hoodie. Dia slithered inside Marco’s T-shirt, making it bulge strangely. I rushed up to them and hugged them. I could feel Merlyse’s little bird twitches through the cloth of Jake’s hoodie, and the textured smoothness of Dia’s scales through the thin material of Marco’s T-shirt. It was more intimate than any make-out session we’d had. I didn’t care that we were doing this in front of an audience. In that moment, it didn’t matter, at least not to me. 

I pulled out of the hug and flung Quincy out of my sleeve to fly to Abineng’s ear. Rachel turned to look at me. I looked back. Marco was watching her too.

She shook her head. “Nuh-uh. I’m not going to say it. Not this time. Sorry.”

“Fine,” I said. “Let’s do it.” I turned to Mr. Tidwell. 

He held his hand up to his ear as if to listen to a transmission on a Secret Service earpiece. Illim crawled out into his cupped hand. This time, Kalysico’s bucket stayed at his feet. I quickly took Illim from Tidwell’s hand and pressed him to my ear, knowing from experience how unpleasant it was to be a Yeerk in the open air. 

From Illim I felt deep sadness and sheer determination to get this done. It was pretty compatible with how I felt. Rachel was almost done morphing to Yeerk, a shifting mass in the mud at Tobias’s feet. Quincy, displaced by Abi’s disappearance, flew in circles above me, waiting for his turn. 

Illim and I focused on the Taxxon. 

It wasn’t any less disgusting to me than it had been the first time. At least this time Illim and I both knew to steer the morph toward developing a Taxxon mouth as quickly as possible. My human mouth opened enormous, grotesque, filling in with needle teeth. The Andalites recoiled at the sight. My legs melted together, and I fell face-first into the mud, chewing it down almost before my digestive system became Taxxon enough to absorb it. I heard the guzzling, slurping noises as Tobias and I gorged ourselves on the wet bioluminescent dirt. It was absolutely foul, right up until it was the most delicious thing in the world. 

«Hey. Aren’t you forgetting something, Cassie?» A voice in my head. Jake. 

«The virus,» Illim said. «Come on back up, we need to bring the virus.»

I wriggled around inside the tunnel I’d started to dig and came back up. I watched the Andalites with my fractured vision. Spit gathered and fell from my open mouth. They both smelled delicious, and one of them didn’t have a pointy tail that could stop me…

The one with the pointy tail – «that’s Gonrod, Cassie, stay focused,» Illim said – stepped forward, his blade poised and ready over his head, and reached out toward me with a small clear vial. It looked like most of the medications my dad would inject into the animals at the clinic. I reached out and took it in one of my pincers. I held on very, very tight.

«Is everyone here?» Rachel said.

«We’re all latched on,» Jake said.

«Follow me.» Arbron, in private thought-speech. As far as I knew, he hadn’t told the other Andalites who he was. 

It wasn’t too hard to get the Taxxon mind to cooperate. Illim just told the Taxxon mind, «We’re going on a mission with our hivemates through one of the Living Hive’s tunnels,» which my Taxxon self was ready to believe, since two Taxxons were going on through the tunnel ahead of me. There was no tasty mud to eat here, but the glow of the Living Hive in the walls reassured me. We flew rapidly along the tunnel toward the Yeerk Pool, even as I mostly wanted to run screaming back.

Then the glow of the Living Hive faded, and we were just in a regular tunnel, slower going as Arbron in the front ate through the cave-ins. Every moment in the dark tunnel crawled by like a century. I kept thinking about the tunnel behind me, how easy it would be to turn back, and the Hunger, always the Hunger.

TSEEEEEEWWWWW!

«AAAAAAHHHH!» The tunnel filled with the reek of smoking Taxxon exoskeleton as my rear end burned from a laser shot. Ahead of me, Rachel and Tobias froze. 

The upper wall of the tunnel rumbled, then caved in over Rachel and Tobias. They screamed too. Then Estrid said from behind me, «We do not wish to hurt you. Simply surrender the virus, and we can all return to the Living Hive peacefully.»

«Estrid!» Illim cried in my head. «She must have acquired a Taxxon morph and followed us. She got a Shredder from the ship and – »

«Rachel?» I cried. «Rachel! Tobias! Jake – »

«We’re fine,» Tobias said. «Sai – and a Yeerk, I guess – are pinning us down. We can’t move, but we’re not hurt. The Chee made Sai – I guess it’s pacifistic like them.»

For an awful moment, all I felt was crushing relief. I could turn back now, abandon this terrible course, and it wouldn’t even be my fault. It would be Estrid’s. She and the Aftran Plisam Pool had beaten us, fair and square.

Then Jake said in private thought-speech, «Rachel and Tobias can’t move, but _we_ can. Marco, Ax, Loren, and I are heading your way. Stall her.»

« _Stall her_?» Marco said. «Is that your brilliant plan for beating a TAXXON with a GUN?!»

At almost the same time, overlapping in my head, Arbron told me, «Estrid may have a Shredder, but she doesn’t know these tunnels. I do. On my mark, tunnel down and forward at a 45 degree angle.»

«What about Rachel and Tobias?» I demanded. 

«We’ll be fine,» Tobias said. «Sai won’t hurt us. Go on.»

«Estrid,» I said. «What are you going to do? The Andalite fleet is coming. You know what they’re like. They’ll burn this whole planet to ash with you still on it if they think they have to.»

Illim said, «Animorphs. Are you all latched on?»

«Just a second!» Loren said, clearly panicking. «I’m almost – »

«I’ll contact them,» Estrid said. «I’ll tell them I nearly have it. I just need more time to ensure its safety. A better lab. They’ll have the facilities I need on board their ships.»

«I’m on!» Loren yelled. 

«MARK!» Arbron cried, and Illim shoved my face into the dirt and swallowed as fast as the Taxxon could manage.

«No! Stop!» TSEEEEEWWWWWWW! I screamed in agony as more of my back half burned away, but there was no time to morph off the damage. I could feel through the dirt that Arbron was ahead of me, digging down and to my left. I rushed to catch up, guzzling down dirt, tunneling. I felt the vibrations as Estrid rushed after me. But she didn’t have a Yeerk to help her control herself, and I heard horrible crunching sounds as she stopped to eat a charred leg she’d burned off of me with her Shredder. My tunnel broke through and merged with Arbron’s with a shower of dirt, and we were off.

«She’s following us,» I said, clutching the vial close with my pincer arm. My back half burned horribly, and mud ingrained itself in the burn wounds. 

«I know,» Arbron said, tense. «Soon, I’m going to tunnel out of your way. You’re going to keep going and hit a thin layer of solid rock. Drill through, and get ready to fall.»

_Drill through?_ I almost said, but Illim gave me a sense-memory of Taxxon teeth rotating like a drill bit into stone. Somewhere on my body in cockroach morph, Jake said, «Fall?»

«Into the Yeerk Pool,» Arbron said. «From the ceiling.» When the tunnel went dead quiet except for the sounds of him greedily burrowing, he added, «That’s where you need the virus to go, right?»

«We’re going to FALL on the Yeerk Pool from the CEILING?!» Marco screeched. «Arbron, dude, this is INSANE!»

«Just jump off me,» I said. «You’ll be fine.»

«What about you?» Loren said. 

«Me?» I said. I’d almost forgotten about me. «I’ll morph.»

I could feel Estrid catching up to us. Arbron had to tunnel to move us forward, but Estrid just had to follow the path we’d already made. The vibrations came closer and closer.

Arbron stopped, then started to tunnel sideways. «Keep going,» he said. «I will try to delay Estrid.»

«Arbron,» Ax said. «You cannot morph away Shredder damage.»

«Taxxons can regenerate fairly well if they’re not eaten before they have the chance,» Arbron said, disappearing into the side tunnel. I scooted up and started tunneling forward. «Besides, I won’t delay her physically. I think I can distract her with my thought-speech alone.»

«You are the bravest of us, Warrior Arbron,» Ax said, and I figured he might be right.

As promised, I fetched up against solid rock. Illim pressed the Taxxon needle-teeth to it and spun them like a drill. SCREEEE! Vibrations and squeals sounded through me as my teeth bored through rock. 

TSEEEEEEWWWWW! 

«AAAAAHHHH!» More of my back half, up in smoke! «Oh God, are you all on my front?» I asked the other Animorphs, as soon as I could think past the pain.

«Yeah,» Marco said shakily. «But that was _way_ too – »

«Surrender the virus!» Estrid raged.

SCREEEEE!

My head slipped through the hole in the rock. Then the rest of me. I fell. Estrid fell right behind me. I demorphed as fast as I could, shedding away all of the Taxxon morph except my pincer hand closed around the vial, exoskeleton at the end of my human arm. Estrid demorphed just as quickly, keeping her Taxxon pincer closed around the Shredder. She wrapped her tail around my leg, locking us together as we fell toward the Pool, reaching for the vial with her Andalite hand. Quincy screamed and flew at her face –

SPLOOOOOOOOOSSSSHHHH!

The crash into the Yeerk Pool was so violent I’m sure I would have passed out if it weren’t for Illim. Stars exploded in my vision. All the breath rushed out of my body. 

The vial broke to pieces in my Taxxon hand, spilling its contents into the Yeerk Pool.

Estrid’s grip loosened from my leg. I exploded up through the Yeerk Pool surface, gulped down air, then ducked under the sludge again. Above the surface, I heard screams and Dracon fire.

I thought urgently at Illim, and he thought-spoke to Estrid, including the other Animorphs in it. «Estrid,» he said. «It’s over. The virus is out. We need to get out of here, right now.»

«So if you have an awesome escape plan, now would be a _great_ time to tell us about it,» Marco added. 

For a moment, I was worried Estrid was about to leave us to figure it out on our own. Then she said, «We are both _estreens._ »

I caught on. I shuffled through the possibilities. Then Quincy stopped at one and thought, _You know, that one’s gotten us out of a lot of tight spots._

Illim saw the thoughts as they formed in my mind. «Do you have any very large morphs?»

«Yes,» Estrid said. «My mother is a marine biologist.»

I pictured the morph in my mind. Illim passed it on. He said to the other Animorphs, «Cover us. Once we’re out, you should be able to escape in the chaos.»

«You think?!» Marco said, a little hysterically. I was feeling a little hysterical myself. I surfaced again for another gulp of air, and smelled my hair singe as someone fired at me. 

«Marco is right,» Illim said. «This is insane.» But he concentrated on the Taxxon at the same time as I focused on the humpback whale.

The Pool shrunk around me. Around _us,_ because there was another shape growing beside me in the sludge. Yeerks were displaced all around me. I focused carefully on keeping the whale’s size and nothing else. It didn’t completely work. I had the whale’s thick blubbery skin instead of a Taxxon exoskeleton, and the whale’s two dark eyes on either side of my head instead of the ring of red jelly eyes. But I had the most important things: the toothy mouth, the digestive system, and the Hunger.

The Hunger was immense.

I heaved myself onto the shore of the Yeerk Pool. So did another monstrously huge Taxxon, this one bloated like a purple and red balloon. I recognized it from Visser Five’s morphs – Estrid was part Taxxon, part mardrut. Through the whale’s eyes I saw smaller shapes coming out of the Pool: a bison, an Andalite, a gorilla, and a tiger, charging after the Controllers who fired their bee-sting Dracons at me. 

I was hungry. I needed dirt.

Estrid and I lumbered toward the wall of the Yeerk Pool, flattening everything in our way. I felt Hork-Bajir blades slice at me as I went. A Hork-Bajir even climbed up onto my side, digging blades into my blubber, before Marco pried him off me and threw him to the ground. I pressed my huge mouth to the rocky side of the Yeerk Pool, and Illim rotated my teeth, sending rock flying everywhere. Estrid followed my example. We were through the rock a lot quicker than it had taken when I had been normal Taxxon size.

When the first glorious crumbs of dirt hit my tongue, I buried my enormous head into it and ate.

The wall of the Yeerk Pool rumbled and shook around us as we ate. Rock buckled and crumbled. Machines crashed and fell over. Scaffolding collapsed in on itself. 

TSEEEEEEWWWWW!

«AAAAARRRRGGHHH!» 

Something enormous had fired on me and Estrid from above. Once again, the back half of me was smoking and burning.

«A Bug fighter!» Estrid cried. «They’ve opened the portal at the apex of the Pool – that’s a Dracon cannon!»

«Get out!» I screamed mentally at the other Animorphs as I burrowed deeper and deeper into the side of the Yeerk Pool, the walls buckling around me and Estrid. «This is your chance! Get wings and get _out_! We’ll meet you at the sandbox entrance to the Hive!»

A rockslide fell behind me, crushing my back legs. It didn’t matter. They were mostly burned off anyway. I kept eating. Illim reached out with his thought-speech. «Arbron? Arbron! Can you hear me?»

«Can I hear you – what do you _mean_ can I – what did you _do_?!» Arbron cried.

«I’ll tell you later,» Illim said. «Are Rachel and Tobias all right?»

«Yes. I went up to check on them.»

Illim suddenly sounded very tired. «Tell Sai and the Yeerk with them – Green Sky or Velger would be my guess – they should let Rachel and Tobias go. It’s done. It’s over.»

«It’s not over,» I said, thinking of Estrid’s dire warning yesterday. «It’s only just starting.»

  


* * *

  


As we have seen in this module, the political consequences of Y-QV-12 were wide-ranging. But I also wanted to dedicate a section of this history to show the everyday, personal impact of the virus on the lives of affected Yeerks and their hosts. Here you will find eight primary documents from the crisis as it swept the Yeerk Empire on Earth. 

Some important translation notes are called for. Each of these documents are noted with their original language, and have been translated into Galard and English if needed. There were many emergent names for the virus as it first appeared; I have replaced all of these with the name that would be widely used later: _dreshked_ , in transliterated Yeerkish, which is related to the term for the Andalite blockade keeping the Empire from its homeworld, imbued with a sense of sundering and unjust exile. 

  


– Foreword by Eslin 825

  


1\. 

  


** The Friends of Aftran 942 **

  


** [U] Helen **

[ _ Emoji of a Yeerk feeling its palps through mud. Indicates caution, tentative inquiry. _ ] Has anyone else here been feeling… off lately?

  


** [U] Bandit **

[ _ Emoji of a Yeerk using its body to protect another Yeerk from a strong current. Indicates worry. _ ] Oh no, Helen, are you one of the supertasters now?

  


** [U] Helen **

Yeah. It sucks. I can barely concentrate on anything, the Pool smells so bad. Is it really just some of us who can taste it in the sludge? I thought maybe a Visser ordered everyone to pretend everything’s fine.

  


** [U] Visser3Gashad **

I have it too [ _ Sadness emoji _ ]

  


** [U] HackersVeleek **

I’ve been monitoring Visser Twenty-Five’s private chat channels. So far, they’re as confused as everyone else. Don’t have any solid numbers yet, but it seems to be affecting efficiency and productivity among poolies. Hosties are getting the effect too, but only in the Pool.

  


** [G] Madra **

My host and I work in Pool maintenance. We’re already getting orders to change filters and scrub outtake tubes more often. As if we don’t already have enough work. [ _ Emoji of Yeerk flattening against the bottom of the Pool. Indicates resignation, submission, embarrassment. _ ]

  


** [T] Derane0 **

It’s probably just that the Sub-Vissers overworked the Pool maintenance staff, and now more sensitive Yeerks can tell how grimy it’s getting in here. Sooner or later they’re gonna figure out you need extra staff, @ Madra .

  


** [U] Bandit **

[ _ Emoji of a Yeerk scrunching up. The equivalent of a human eye-roll emoji. _ ] Optimism? From a peacenik in the Yeerk Empire? Dream on.

  


2.

** Log: Medical Bay Three **

** Medical Officer on Duty:  ** Ifflek 921

** Date: ** Generation 696, late-cycle, siar-rane 122

Thirty-three poolies and ten feeding hosties reported complaining of a hypersensitivity to perceived contamination in the Pool, leading to dizziness, disorientation, and loss of concentration. While most Yeerks do not report these symptoms, I suspect this may be a consequence of today’s Animorph attack on the Pool; it is impossible to know what kinds of dangerous contaminants an Animorph could have introduced to the Pool medium. I have requested extensive chemical testing on the Pool.

** Date: ** Generation 696, late-cycle, esh-rane 123

Sixty-two more poolies and twelve more hosties reporting the same symptoms, and I suspect there is under-reporting for fear of retaliation from Sub-Vissers. So far, the standard tests have returned normal – no known contaminants, though of course there are always unknowns. We can’t rule out infection; we do exchange with different parts of the Yeerk Empire regularly, and an outbreak of a disease elsewhere can be brought here. I recommend we activate the quarantine Pool and transfer over all sick Yeerks.

** Date: ** Generation 696, late-cycle, tef-rane 123

Quarantine proves difficult to implement among poolies, as Yeerks are difficult for hosts to individually identify and capture, and many Yeerks do not wish to volunteer for quarantine, away from their friends and their work. I recommend implanting tracking chips into Yeerks so sick ones can be easily identified and isolated. Many more poolie cases today. Sick hosties are much easier to find and isolate. Strange new symptoms arise in the ten first hostie cases, most notably dangerous lapses in ability to control their hosts. I recommend that involuntary hosts of active cases be immediately reassigned to healthy Yeerks.

  


3.

  


It is with great sorrow that we must announce to the Grash Akdap Pool the untimely death of Felshek 1028 from an unidentified illness.

  


Felshek 1028 was a cybersecurity expert working directly under Sub-Visser 22. They did important work maintaining the integrity of the Empire’s data against Andalite, Animorph, and Yeerk traitor attempts at hacking and infiltration. They were known as a great admirer of the Vissers who studied the military history of the Empire and the Sulp Niar Pool on the homeworld. Their service to the Empire was valued, and they will be greatly missed.

  


A remembrance token for Felshek 1028 will be dropped in the Akdor Sector of the Pool on esh-rane at the end of first shift. If you will not be a part of the remembrance ceremony tomorrow, you must be quiet and respectful when passing through Akdor Sector.

  


If you have any questions or concerns, we encourage you to take them to your commanding Sub-Visser.

  


** Comments **

  


Oh no. Oh, by the Kandrona, no.

– Felshek 270

  


An unidentified illness? What the _dapsen_? 

– Trafit 829

  


I worked with Felshek 1028. They were sick with _dreshked_. It’s obvious what happened here.

– Falsen 228

  


Hey, Vissers, I have a question for you: when are we going to get answers about _dreshked_? What _is_ it? Did the Animorphs do this? Why did Felshek die?

– Deseek 1093

  


** Comments have been turned off. **

  


4.

  


** Private Message – Sub-Visser Ninety-Two **

  


** Ipsel 1438 **

I and the other creche caretakers for the Shakdap spawning have thought about this deeply ever since the first deaths were reported. Here is my proposal for a creche safety plan going forward.

  


We designate a System-class Nova ship as a quarantine ship for the grubs. The ship is cloaked and run by a skeleton crew. The only inhabitants of the ship’s Pool are the grubs and their caretakers. Contact with the outside world is kept to a minimum. Deliveries once every ten rane of Pool maintenance supplies, food for the skeleton crew’s hosts, and any replacement parts needed for the ship. All deliveries are contactless through the ship’s airlocks and go through decontamination before use.

  


We can’t all stay safe from  _ dreshked _ and still maintain our Empire. But at least we can keep the children safe.

  


** Sub-Visser Ninety-Two **

Request denied. Figure out a plan that doesn’t take one of our top orbitside assets out of commission.

  


** Ipsel 1438 **

Then we need another planetside Pool large enough to accommodate all of the grubs in the Grash Akdap Pool. In a separate facility, so we can minimize transmission between it and Grash Akdap.

  


** Sub-Visser Ninety-Two **

Request denied.

  


5.

  


  


** Visserarchy Private Message Well **

  


** #planning-proposals **

Post proposals for new initiatives here. Do not debate proposals in this channel; discussion belongs in #proposal-discussion. 

  


** Visser Twenty-Five **

Two Sub-Vissers have already shown symptoms of  _ dreshked. _ If we want to keep the disease from spreading through the Visserarchy, we need to act boldly and we need to act now. 

  


We need to round up all available Taxxons – uninfested only, to ensure there are no Yeerk  _ dreshked _ carriers involved. We use them to excavate a completely separate chamber to the main Pool complex. We recall all portable Pools currently in circulation and strip out the Kandrona generators. I calculate that with ten portable Kandrona generators, we can produce enough radiation to support a Pool that can continuously feed fifty Yeerks at a time. This should be enough to sustain the Visserarchy through the crisis.

  


This separate Pool complex must be self-sufficient. We must not bring our personal assistants or bodyguards unless they are uninfested Taxxons. We have to help each other subdue our hosts while we are feeding. To bring anyone else in is to risk infection. Here is where we show our mettle. Are we capable of swimming under our own power, or do we need jumped-up poolies to serve our every whim?

  


  


6.

** Memo to Pool Sanitation **

** Subject:  ** New directives for corpse removals

Sniffer bots have now been deployed in the Pool to detect the chemical signature of a recent death. When a corpse has been found, the sniffer bots emit a sound at a frequency clearly audible to Gedds only. We also have deployed additional inflatable rafts around the Pool perimeter rated for Gedd weight, and nets with tighter mesh weave, as you have requested. These steps will facilitate the rapid location and removal of corpses from the Pool.

The new policy is that you must refuse to answer any questions about your work. Do not tell anyone about the concentration of decomposition bacteria in the Pool, do not tell anyone how many corpses you have retrieved,  _ do not comment _ . Causing widespread panic is counterproductive and will only make your jobs harder.

Remembrance tokens must all now be dropped at the same time at the end of the rane. The spread-out remembrances have caused great disruption in the Pool. We can minimize this disruption by holding all of them simultaneously at one time and one place.

  


7.

  


** Sub-Visser Seventy-Nine’s Regiment **

  


** #voluntarycontrollers **

A channel for Yeerks with voluntary hosts to discuss how to optimize and leverage our cooperative relationships with our host bodies. Remember to report any subversive activity to @ Esplin1871 , the content moderator for the Grash Akdap message wells.

  


** [VISSER] Sub-Visser Seventy-Nine **

An important announcement. As of next shift, you are all reassigned to Pool Security.

  


** Edrin 1012 **

Sub-Visser? With all due respect, my host is an elderly human, and in no physical condition to haul around unruly involuntaries.

  


** Garmiray 1332 **

My host and I are happy to serve the Empire in any way we can, but we have no training in security.

  


** [VISSER] Sub-Visser Seventy-Nine **

Enough! You will be issued Dracon beams and you will follow the orders of experienced security staff. We need all Pool security to be voluntary Controllers only. I am logging off now, but I expect to see you all at my office at the beginning of next shift.

  


** Eslin 818 **

Stop being whiny little  _ dapsens _ , everyone. Haven’t you heard what  _ dreshked _ does to hosties? The last thing we need is a Pool guard losing control over their involuntary host. The hosts will grab the Dracon beams off their belts and start shooting everyone in sight. 

  


** Eslin 818 **

Unless you’re worried your host isn’t so voluntary after all. Worried they’ll get ideas if you catch  _ dreshked _ and they have a Dracon beam on hand? Pathetic. I  _ know _ my host would never betray me or the Empire.

  


8.

  


** Transcript of a phone call to Governor Celia Hernandez **

**Location:** Undisclosed

**Time:** 9:02 PM Pacific Standard Time

  


**Lieutenant Kimberley:** This is the office of Governor Celia Hernandez. How may I help you?

**Sergeant Park:** Can you transfer me to the Governor?

**Lieutenant Kimberley:** Of course, Sergeant Park. Stand by. Governor Hernandez? A call for you from Sergeant Park, of Third Squad. 

**Governor Hernandez:** Same unit?

**Lieutenant Kimberley:** Of course. I know which calls to screen.

**Governor Hernandez:** Transfer her over.

**Sergeant Park:** Governor Hernandez?

**Governor Hernandez:** Speaking.

**Sergeant Park:** Is Lieutenant Kimberley still on the line?

**Governor Hernandez:** No.

**Sergeant Park:** Are you sure? I need to speak to you privately.

**Governor Hernandez:** Hang on, I’ll go to his desk and check. [ _Pause_ ] He’s definitely not on the line.

**Sergeant Park:** Good. Your bunker is compromised, Governor. You aren’t safe.

**Governor Hernandez:** What? What happened?

**Sergeant Park:** This is going to take way too long to explain. You’re taking the right precautions, but there’s still so much you don’t –

**Governor Hernandez:** If you’re talking about the aliens, Sergeant Park, I know about them, so you can skip straight to the real intel.

**Sergeant Park:** Oh, God. Thank God. Governor, Lieutenant Kimberley is one of _them_. They got him last week. You need to –

**Governor Hernandez:** How do you know?

**Sergeant Park:** Ma’am, I know because _I’m_ one of them. If I call you again, you can’t trust me. Don’t listen to anything I say. I managed to get free of its control somehow – it’s never worked before, but right now it’s _working,_ and I knew I had to warn you before it gets hold of me again.

**Governor Hernandez:** Thank you, Sergeant. Go on.

**Sergeant Park:** You need to trust Sergeant Li. They don’t have him yet. Get in touch with him. And be careful with Lieutenant Kimberley, ma’am. Don’t let him know you’re onto him yet.

**Governor Hernandez:** Don’t worry. I got it.

**Sergeant Park:** Good luck, ma’am. Uh, what else can I tell you? Do you need to know how many Yeerk spaceships there are in Earth orbit?

**Governor Hernandez:** [ _uncaps a pen_ ] It couldn’t hurt.

**Sergeant Park:** There are –

[ _Call disconnected by operator Lieutenant Kimberley._ ]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content notes: cannibalism, pandemic / virus horror


	8. Three Mothers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So you must wake up every morning knowing that no promise is unbreakable, least of all the promise of waking up at all. This is not despair. These are the preferences of the universe itself: verbs over nouns, actions over states, struggle over hope.”
> 
> ― Ta-Nehisi Coates, _Between the World and Me_

** Estrid-Corrill-Darrath **

The  _ Ralek River _ is named for a philosophical concept that originates in the westernmost Great Gardens. According to this philosophy, there are many thought-rivers into which one may dip one's hoof, and the key to the contemplative life is to drink these carefully and selectively. The Ralek River is the thought-river that flows from one's ancestors, a continuous stream of thought from every fallen Andalite of your ancestral land enshrined in your  _ djesculi _ .

(If there really is such a thing as a Ralek River, then it is fortunate I bear my mother’s  _ djesculi,  _ Corrill, so my mind need not drink from the open sewer that is Semitur.)

The thought-river of this ship, the  _ Ralek River _ , is poisoned.

I passed by Arbat's quarters, and remembered all the times he would bring me there to teach me lessons, even as he secretly planned to make a fool of me. I did my best not to remember seeing his corpse spilling blood through the open doorway. I passed through the entrance corridor on my way for a walk through the Living Hive, and saw the place where Aloth had left a Hork-Bajir in a pool of green blood, repeating the violent cycle of my father's idiotic mistakes, just like me. In the drop shaft, I passed the second floor of the ship, poisoned by the ruins of my lab and all the mistakes I might have made that were now beyond my power to correct.

On the first floor, I came upon a doorway and paused. This room, too, was poisoned by my mistakes. But not everything here was dead. I pressed my hand to the lock panel and entered.

I stared down into the Pool that Aximili and the human named Peter and Mirazai had built for my use. Of the eleven Yeerks that the Animorphs had brought here, ten had survived, at least so far. The survivors had shown no side effects that I could detect, but so little time had passed since the infections. It was still possible that I was a foolish little girl who had ruined everything, and now that Aximili had destroyed my lab, I might never know for certain. I had no way to monitor their condition now.

And so, I realized, there was no longer any reason to keep them here.

I cast about the room for a bucket. I found the small one I had used to add essential electrolytes to the sludge and picked it up with my tail. I needed these Yeerks off the ship, now. It was wrong for them to be here. Perverse. Impatient, imprecise, I sifted through the opaque liquid with the net I had used to catch them for injections and fluid draws. Taking the twice the time I might have with patience and calm, I transferred them one by one into the bucket until I had all ten.

I walked out of the ship with no one to remark on the bucket hanging from my tail — the ship was agonizingly quiet now, with no work to occupy my mind — until I drew near the Aftran Plisam Pool, and a Yeerk was in my way. It was Illim, who had watched me lose a fight to brutish, desperate Aximili. Who had very likely saved my life from his fury. I owed my life to a  _ Yeerk _ . My hooves choked with the shame of it.

He stood firm between me and the Pool, as if he were a meaningful obstacle. He said, "What are you doing here, Estrid?"

«I am not here to harm your Pool,» I said. I swung my tail forward, showing him the bucket. «I am here to grant clemency. My medical trials are over. The subjects may go free now.»

Illim stared at the bucket, then looked in my main eyes. When he spoke this time, his voice was quieter. "I appreciate the thought. But you can't release those Yeerks into the Aftran Plisam Pool. You should take them back to your ship."

«Why?» I demanded. I imagined returning the Yeerks to the Pool on the Ralek River, and my stomachs clenched with something close to panic.

"Those Yeerks are host-breakers. Do you know what those are?" I did not, and thankfully did not have to admit my ignorance, because the Yeerk went on without pause. "They are Yeerks who have specially trained in techniques of psychological domination and torture, the type that only a Yeerk can perpetrate. They discipline and control rebellious hosts. Like the disabled children with the Peace Movement who couldn’t escape the hospital with the others." He gestured toward the bucket hanging from my tail. "These are war criminals. Do you have any idea how difficult and dangerous it is to integrate people like them back into society?"

I am largely ignorant of human body language, but I had a sense from Illim's cold look that he thought he had me cornered. That he was about to force me to admit my ignorance on a subject that I had only pretended to understand. In fact, he had done precisely the opposite.

I took a single step forward. «I know  _ exactly _ what that is like, Yeerk. Better than  _ you _ ever could. I have seen it all. The way a person who has made a terrible choice becomes an abomination in the eyes of his fellow people. The way they try to cut him off like a gangrenous limb, as if that could prevent his moral rot from spreading. The ones who hope they can make the crime disappear by never mentioning it. The ones who make the criminal into a lower species, so they never have to admit that they could have made the same choice. Yes, Illim. I am sure your fellows in that Pool would like to return these host-breakers to my ship, so they need never contend with how their actions reflect on who they themselves may be. Very well. I will quarantine this moral disease, the same way we have quarantined Aloth and everything he signifies. But I will keep them alive, and one day, I promise you, you  _ will _ face them.»

Illim stared at me. For the first time, I noticed that he too was carrying a bucket from the Ralek River, which he now held to his chest with both arms. "Who was it for you?" he said. "It was my grandfather. For me."

All four of my eyes locked on him. Grandfather. That was a meaningless term to a Yeerk. Which meant — «You are not Illim.»

The corner of the human's mouth turned up. "Too stupid to speak for myself, am I? Or does Illim disgust you so much that he drowns me out completely?" He raised an arm from its grip around the bucket and waved it from side to side. "Hi. Julian Tidwell." He shook the bucket a little, sloshing its contents. "You can't see her, but my dæmon Kalysico is in here. She's a four-eyed butterflyfish." I was honestly relieved that I could not see her; the way that human Guide Animals were always on display disturbed me. I only invite a very select few to come visit Surra Erf's grove. “You don't have to tell me who it was for you. I'll tell you mine.” He stared into the distant glow of the Hive-fungus and stirred a finger absently in the bucket that held his Guide Fish. “My mother fled here from another human nation because of the ascension of a terrible dictator. My grandfather stayed there, because he loved the dictator. He reported his neighbors to the secret police. For all I know, he may have  _ been _ the secret police. And when the dictator died, and his reign of terror was over, my grandfather was still part of our family. And somehow, we had to live with that.”

I nearly told him. It mortifies me to admit that. I nearly told my father's entire story to an alien stranger. My knees went weak, and in all my shame and exhaustion, all I wanted was to fall to the ground and confess. To tell someone, anyone, what it was like to live tainted by the crimes of the father who had become the Abomination before I was out of the pouch.

No, that is not right. I am twisting my words again. Here is the truth: I am not ashamed that I nearly told Julian the story of my family, the public humiliations and private torments, my and Mother’s desperate attempts to be  _ feshlath _ between the herd of the honorable and the herd of the monstrous. I am ashamed that I did  _ not _ tell him. It horrifies me that I am so imprisoned by my own shame that I could not even confess to an alien totally outside my world’s hierarchies and preconceptions. I tried to make the excuse to myself that it was because he couldn't possibly understand, but I knew in my hearts that was not true. In truth, it was because I was weak, and like any injured prey animal, I was afraid to show any weakness. Perhaps that makes me a poor example of an Andalite, but after trying so hard to prove myself otherwise, I can now admit that that is all I have ever been.

«Tell Illim,» I said to the human named Julian Tidwell and his Guide Fish. «Make him understand.» I turned around, and as I returned the Yeerks from the bucket to the Pool, I wondered bitterly what my prisoners had made of this interlude, in their ignorance.

  


** Toby **

I heard the gasp and the thready cry as my father slit open the egg of my clone-sister so she could take her first breath. I should have been there to see it. Instead, I drowned out her baby cries with a roar and a kick to a Controller’s chest.

The Gold Band fell, but landed on a branch below without injuring herself further. She called up to me. “There’s no need for all of this bloodshed, Seer. You can end it. We don’t want any of you dead, or even hurt. Just surrender and this will all be over.”

“Free or dead!” I snarled in my language, and all around me, Hork-Bajir voices chorused along in spoken and in thought-speech voices. 

In all the distraction, the Gold Band didn't notice Bej Weta in rattlesnake morph slithering along her branch to sink his fangs into her leg. She cried out and shook her leg, flinging him down into the brush, but I knew he would morph away any damage she had done. Rattlesnake morph had become a favorite of ours, because we had discovered that their venom incapacitated—but did not kill—Hork-Bajir. We could poison Hork-Bajir-Controllers and take their limp bodies away, get out their Yeerks, and hope the host survived the experience.

I flung myself through the trees full-tilt toward a moving blaze of _hrala_ I spotted through the trees. I used all my momentum to launch myself at it, crashing both myself and the Gold Band down into the leaf litter. But another Gold Band caught up with us and dropped down on me from above, and we became a tangle of blades and roars down on the ground. 

It was too many. I was trapped between them. I couldn’t morph with both of their claws in me. I thrashed around violently, but I needed backup. 

«Free or dead!» cried a familiar voice in thought-speech, and a red-tailed hawk came screaming down through the canopy, talons outstretched, and raked at the eyes of the attacker on my back. He roared in agony and disengaged. I sprung to my feet, stomped down on him, and launched myself back up into the trees, the other Gold Band in hot pursuit. 

I didn’t have time to ask Tobias what he was doing here, or whether more reinforcements were coming. I just fled through the trees, quickly as I could, knowing Tobias would back me up. I didn’t look back to see what was going on, but I heard another raptor scream behind me, and another male Hork-Bajir roar.

I used the opportunity to gain as much distance as I could. The all-too-familiar sounds of Hork-Bajir-on-Hork-Bajir combat sounded all around me through the trees. This was our last stand. We couldn’t disappear into the forest like we had so many times before.

In the distance, I heard my mother’s low groans as she worked on birthing another soft egg.

“Tobias,” I said, “do you have any more Animorphs up your sleeve?”

«No,» Tobias said. «Just me. I’m here to deliver a message, but it sounds like right now isn’t a good time. How can I help?»

“You’ve had an overhead view of the situation,” I said. “None of my morphers are in bird morph right now. If you see anyone closing in on my parents, and on her birth attendants…”

«I did,» Tobias said. «But I didn’t realize your mom was… never mind. I saw a group of reinforcement Gold Bands coming up from the south along a ravine. Follow me— I’ll show you.»

I followed Tobias through the woods. Now was my moment to ask him what he was doing here. “What was the message?” I said, a little breathlessly, as I moved through the trees as quickly as I could.

«We did it,» Tobias said. «We unleashed the virus on the Yeerk Pool. This wave of Gold Bands you’re facing now—this might be the last wave they’re able to send. As soon as you’re able to get them off your backs, I think it’s time to move in. Towards Santa Barbara. There’s going to be a lot of new-frees very soon, and they’re going to need you and your people.»

A bright flame of hope stuck in my throat like a burning ember. I hadn’t earned its warmth yet, but I had earned the way it scalded me. I had spent so long fighting, I hadn’t taken enough time to consider the after. In a world where the Yeerks couldn’t enslave my people anymore, there was still so much work left to do, and Tobias was right: my people were the only ones who could do it. We just had to survive that long.

My mother needed to survive that long. My little sisters needed to survive that long.

«Up,» Tobias said above me. «Get a good look.»

I climbed as high up through the trees as I could. I saw the map of _hrala_ blazing around me, like one of the wildfires that would start in the National Forest when lightning hit. Battles burned all around me. As Tobias had promised, a group of little flames moving along the ravine: the reinforcements that had been too far away for us to see coming. The brightest fire of all, the creation of new life as my mother worked on birthing another egg. But the reinforcements were too many for just me and Tobias. 

“Call for others,” I said. “Get as many as you can.” I ducked back down into the trees. From my perch up there, I could see the reinforcements coming, but they could have also seen me.

For all the morphs we’d acquired in our time moving as guerrilla fighters in alien forests, there was no morph for fighting Hork-Bajir quite like a Hork-Bajir. None of the Earth animals we’d encountered here had the combination of deadly fighting strength and tree-climbing ability that we did. I assumed that the Gold Bands had seen me, so I got directly in their way and did what I had learned to do so many times in recent days: I set a trap.

There was an area that was a burn scar from a previous wildfire through the woods. Many of the trees there were crumbling and weak. They couldn’t hold an adult Hork-Bajir’s weight in the way that a living tree could. Some of them were ready to splinter. I knew this, but did they?

I led them toward the burn scar, holding onto trees I knew were stable. I didn’t look back to see if they were following me. I was leading them closer, toward my family, but they’d been coming that way anyway. I was also leading them toward my fellow warriors.

I carefully navigated my way through the burn scar, then moved as quickly as I could through the living woods. I was panting with exhaustion. We usually didn’t let ourselves get into battles this long. This was a problem I couldn’t morph away; morphing would only make it worse.

Behind me, I heard the creak of a tree branch snapping, and a cry, but only one. It wasn’t enough. The one who had fallen could just get back up again. As I led the Gold Bands into the thick of the fighting, I saw less h _rala_ than I had before, lives snuffing out. To my horror, I saw a _hrala_ flame break through our line, straight toward my mother and her attendants. Another broke through; another. 

Tobias came screeching down from above. I broke through after them. Once I was close enough, I saw the nurse Kal Geta holding my mother. She strained over her egg. My father and Tom, meant to be the last line of defense, were perched in attack positions and ready. 

I launched myself at one of the Gold Bands, trying to make a grab for her tail. My claws left bloody rakes in the base of her tail, but she got free of me and kept moving. I moved as fast as I could, but then she was coming for my father, and he was fighting her, and there were more coming, and it was too much! It was impossible!

TSEEEEEWWW!

It was one of the loudest Dracon blasts I’d ever heard, an enormous beam thundering down. To my side, two Hork-Bajir Controllers were instantly vaporized, and the trees around them, leaving nothing but a swirl of smoke and dust.

Everyone stopped. We looked up.

I recognized the design and the aesthetic of three Yeerk ships, if not the exact models. Why had they fired on the Gold Bands? Could they just not tell one Hork-Bajir from another from up there? It seemed likely. 

The reinforcements had come. We were doomed. The only possible choice we could make would be to leave my mother behind.

But even if we did something so terrible, we could still never flee from a spaceship.

TSEEEEEWWW!

The ship fired again, this time at a point where I couldn’t see its target. 

Then the ship landed in the burn scar it had just made. Then came the other ship, and the other—there were three in all, shiny new models of Yeerk ship I had never seen before.

Tobias said, «Is this one of these inter-Visser Yeerk rivalries? What’s going on?»

“You don’t know those ships either?” I said. 

«No,» said Tobias.

The ships’ doors opened. Hork-Bajir came flooding out. There were two dozen of them, armed with Dracon beams and more exotic weapons. Reinforcements, more Controllers—it had to be.

It was the worst-case scenario. I’d have to call for my warriors to all put their blades to their own throats. I held the terrible signal word in my mind.

But then I saw it: the scar of an eye that had been torn out by a red-tailed hawk.

“Fal Tagut?” I said. “But you went to the Hork-Bajir homeworld!”

He turned his good eye to look up at me, and grinned. “Hello, Toby Hamee. We are back, and this time, there are more of us. Show us which ones are the enemy.”

“The ones with the gold bands wrapped around their upper arms,” I said on autopilot, too stunned to question what was happening.

A Hork-Bajir girl-child had come out of one of the ships. No, not a child—the same age I had been when I had first started raiding to free my comrades. But that seemed so young to me now. She signaled to the warriors around her and said, “Go! Go! Go!” They dispersed through the trees, Dracon beams hoisted up on their shoulders in holsters made for Hork-Bajir. 

The girl-child came for the Gold Band fighting my father and Tom. She tackled him full-force, separating him from my father, and pointed her Dracon beam at his head and fired.

TSEEEEEW!

I cried out in shock. We tried so hard not to use deadly force whenever we could, so that we could free people, but she had just—!

But I could only be grateful.

All around me, the reinforcements were fanning out, driving away our enemies. The group of reinforcements who had come along the ravine turned right back around the way they had come.

I went to my father to check his injuries, but he was already back at my mother’s side. She was finally pushing out another egg. This one he didn’t slit open. He let it wait until my sister was ready to come out.

“Is that all of them?” I asked him.

“Yes,” he said. “Two living.”

My mother was holding the other one, still wet from the egg. I wanted so much to hold her, too, but unfortunately, the birth of my new sisters wasn’t the most important thing at that moment, even though it should have been. 

I turned to the girl-child who had just saved my father from his attacker. “Who are you?” I said.

She smiled. “My name is Kory,” she said.

“Kory?” I said. It was a strange name for a Hork-Bajir.

She gestured down at the ships. Chee-Koril was standing on the threshold of one, looking out at the forest. “I was named after them,” she said. “The one who helped Quafijinivon the Arn make me and my siblings.” When she saw my shock, she smiled and said, “Yes, Toby Hamee. I am different, too.”

“But those can’t all be Seers,” I said, gesturing at the other warriors quickly chasing away or rounding up the Gold Bands.

“No,” she said. “We learned something from Kref Magh, from your tactics. Once we had enough strength, we started freeing Controllers whenever we could on raids on the homeworld. We came up from the Deep and grabbed them one by one, and starved out their Yeerks. We are your legacy, Toby, or the beginning of it.”

“Where is the Arn?” I said.

Kory tilted her head. “Quafijinivon did not come. It is almost dead, you know.”

“Then how did you pilot the ships? Koril can’t be in three places at once; you’d need a crew to handle ships that size.”

“Toby, _we_ are the crew,” Kory said. “We don’t need the Arn. We don’t need the Yeerks, we don’t need humans, and we don’t need Andalites. We can fly ships from the Hork-Bajir homeworld all the way to here on our own.”

I was rocked by that. I nearly fell off my branch. It was something I’d never dared to imagine: my people, journeying through the stars without needing anyone’s help or permission. It was a staggering thing to imagine. Interchange between my homeworld and Earth and other places, self-determination, our own chance to learn and meet new peoples. The chance to come home on our own terms. It was more than I had ever dared to imagine.

I came toward Kory, and I touched my forehead blades to hers in greeting. “Welcome to Earth, Kory,” I said. “Welcome to all of our comrades from the homeworld. We are so happy to have you here.” I pulled back. “Would you like to meet my little sisters?”

She smiled, and I led my fellow Seer toward my mother. Kel, the nurse, was guiding her through some kind of _hrala_ -focusing exercise to help her galm and ground herself after the intensity of birth. Their beaks were pointed up toward some point in the sky. I looked up and saw the vortex of _hrala_ dispersing up above us, and to the trees around us in every direction. 

My father and Tom were with them in the tree. They were both bleeding freely from wounds. Jara held the soft unhatched egg. It moved and warped as the baby inside worked to burst the egg open with her sharp beak. Tom looked on in wonder.

“Mother, father,” I said, “this is Kory. She and her fellows came here from the homeworld to help us. Kory is different, like me. Kory, these are my parents, Jara Hamee and Ket Helpak. With them are Tom and Kel.”

Kory leaned in a little to look at the egg in my father’s arms. “This reminds me of seeing my younger siblings hatch,” she said.

“You have younger siblings?” I said.

“The Arn didn’t stop with me. There are Seers who are too young to go. They are still with the Arn in the Deep valley. We had to leave them behind,” she said. She looked wistful.

“What is it like to grow up on the homeworld?” my father said hungrily. My father had grown up on stories of the homeworld. They had been his only salvation living in bondage. I could see why he cared about it so much, even more intensely than I did.

Kory considered the question for a while. Finally, she said, “I've spoken at length with the Hork-Bajir who came from Kref Magh with Quafijinivon to help raise us. They are my parents in all the ways that matter. Fal, Jot, and Maka, my two fathers and my mother. Fathers and a mother to all of us who the Arn created. From what they have said, it seems to be both kinder and crueler that we grew up so close to our home. 

“On some days, when the coast was clear, we could climb up above the mists. Sometimes it was to raid and to free our people: a quick strike, to pull them back down into the Deep. But sometimes, we went just to look, to see the remnants of the great trees our ancestors tended. But we couldn't go there. We could only look. It was so close, and yet so far. All of you here on Earth, you never even got the chance to see it; only to imagine it. I don’t know which one is better.”

Just then, the younger twin’s beak broke through the firm membrane of the egg, and it opened in a rush of fluid. Jara eased her out, and gave the rubbery shell to Kel, who also held the shell of the first egg to give a live sister, and the two stillborns as well. Soon we would bury them in the woods and say the right words for them, but first there were words we had to say to the living.

“What will we name them, mother?” I said to Ket. She looked at the little baby held to her chest, then to the one in my father’s arms.

She hefted the one in her arms and said, “This will be Tashir,” which meant, _we will climb_. “And the other will be Tekat,” which meant, _we will leap._

  


**  
Eva  
**

It was Sanity Restoration Hour _chez_ Visser One, and I was pretty sure that Aftran was drawing the Psaarig. It was a strange picture she was drawing with my hands. Blurred, like she was trying to translate across senses. She was trying her best to make a swirl of fuzzy shapes within a vast darkness, erasing tiny patches of it to make a shape like a murmuration of starlings in migration.

Aftran caught me looking, and snatched back the paper. “Stop spying,” she snarled in my voice. 

I leaned back in my chair and grinned. “You get to spy on my thoughts all the time; I have a right to spy on yours. It’s only fair. Is that your ceremony? The Psaarig?”

Aftran looked down at the paper and back up at me. “How did you know?”

“You’re not opaque to me, Aftran. Not completely. I can tell you’ve been thinking about it nonstop ever since. It’s been two weeks.”

Aftran tightened my face with anger. “How could I not? I couldn’t see the virus, of course, but I couldn’t stop imagining it the whole time, passing through the Pool water, from Yeerk to Yeerk, palp to palp, infecting us even as we did something so essential. It’s not...” She started to crumple the paper a little bit in her hand, then unclenched and smoothed the paper back out. I wondered why it mattered to her, when the paper would have to go into the incinerator at the end of Sanity Hour anyway. 

There was a _ping!_ at the terminal that signaled that someone was trying to get access to my quarters. Mercurio popped his wet head out of the bathroom at the sound, and he trudged damp footprints after me as I went to the terminal to check it out. There was a message there from Trafit, my personal assistant. It read:

_ I have some important post-Psaarig follow-up to discuss with you, Visser. Please let me in. _

Well, damn. That could very well be important. Sanity Restoration Hour would have to come to an early end, as it had before. I turned to Aftran and shooed her toward the bathroom. “Get back there; demorph. Come back out when I signal that it’s okay.”

I heard her push the chair back in, and a crumpling sound as she picked up our papers and took them to the bathroom with her. Only when I heard the bathroom door slide shut did I press the button to open the door to the quarters. 

There was a pneumatic hiss as the door slid open. Standing at the threshold was my personal assistant, the Gedd-Controller Trafit, and none other than Michelle Clark, host to the notorious host-breaker Efdram 58.

They were both holding Dracon beams pointed at me.

I only had just enough time to register the situation before they fired.

TSEEW! A wound to the side of my neck, instantly cauterized.

TSEEW! Another to my chest, a hole straight through. 

Morph— I had to morph!

I focused on the timber rattlesnake within me, but my mind was fuzzing in and out of consciousness. I was losing too much blood. I couldn’t—I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think.

There was another pneumatic hiss behind me, another TSEEW! TSEEW! 

Then everything went black.

  


**  
Aftran  
**

I picked up the Dracon beam from Eva’s nightstand as I half-slid on the slippery floor into the bathroom. I remembered our last near-assassination way too well to go without one, even though it was probably just Trafit with some stupid paperwork to fill out. I felt ridiculous standing in the wet bathroom in Eva morph, holding a deadly weapon in one hand and some crumpled up drawings in the other.

TSEEEEW! TSEEEW!

“I knew it,” I hissed, running out of the bathroom with my Dracon beam raised. I didn’t stop to figure out who the attackers were or what was going on. I just stunned them and left it for my future self to figure out. 

That was when I noticed that Eva was halfway to rattlesnake and had too many holes in her body. Her gray scaly body thrashed on the ground as she gasped, “Mamá! Mamá! Help me!” Mercurio was splattered in Eva’s blood, dark red against the black and white. 

I knelt on the floor, getting her blood on my knees. I looked at Mercurio, who at least didn’t have any holes in him. Something knotted up in my throat. I knew from Cassie’s mind how to talk an injured morpher through a morph. I had to be gentle, familiar. Gentle and familiar just wasn’t me. I had to be somebody else.

Paloma. I knew how to talk like Eva’s mother. I had heard her in Eva’s dreams. In morph as Eva, I would even sound like her mother, at least a little. “I will help you, Merqui,” I said. “Do you remember being a snake as a child? What was it like?”

“Laid out in the sun,” he murmured. “Basking…” Eva began to shrink and shrivel in on herself. 

“Curled up in the courtyard?” I prompted.

“Yes,” Mercurio said dreamily, and he disappeared.

I looked at the fully morphed rattlesnake on the ground and waited for Eva’s clarity to return, but there was no response. “I need to get her human again,” I told myself, and lifted her up into the bed. Feeling like a total fool, I stroked her scales with two fingers. “Hey,” I tried. “You want to be human again?” Nothing. I remembered some half-lost dream of Eva as a child hearing a terrible mariachi band with her mother, and the jokes they made about it for years afterward. “Ayyyy,” I sang, as awful as the mariachis. “Jalisco no te rajes!”

The scales turned to brown skin beneath my stroking fingers. I yanked my fingers back as if burned. I looked away from her, and finally noticed who it was that had attacked her. “Trafit, you rat bastard,” I snarled, and went into the weapons locker to get the force cuffs.

  


****  
Eva  


When I came to, I was human, in one piece, and lying on my bed, my hand resting on Mercurio’s neck, draped over the bed beside me. Aftran, still in morph as me, stood at the foot of my bed, holding one of my Dracon beams pointed toward the two Controllers attached to my chairs with force-cuffs. They were still unconscious.

“What happened?” I said groggily.

“I grabbed a Dracon beam from your nightstand on the way to the bathroom,” said Aftran, with a smug little smile I’ve felt but never seen on my own face.

“How am I not bleeding out?” I said. Mercurio prodded at me with his beak, checking that I was in one piece.

“After I stunned them, I found you half-conscious. You were raving. I talked you through the rest of the morph and demorph. I guess you don’t remember any of that.” 

I could imagine the scene. Aftran knew the inside of my mind. She’d know exactly what to say to help me focus on the rattlesnake, and then back on my own body. I imagined her kneeling over my prone body, talking a stream of consciousness to me until Mercurio appeared again and I was whole.

“And you dragged me onto the bed? That was sweet of you,” I said, propping myself up on my elbows.

“Shut up,” said Aftran. “What are we going to do about these two?” 

I got out of bed and flung open the wardrobe. “Before we do anything with them, we are both putting on some goddamn clothing. We are not interrogating prisoners in my naked body.” I grabbed a suit and shoved another one at her. When she put down the Dracon beam so she could get dressed, I threw a towel at her. “And for God’s sake, wipe yourself first! You have my blood all over you! Jesus, I thought Yeerks were obsessed with hygiene!”

“We are,” Aftran said, wiping my blood off. “It’s just that for us, getting covered in each other’s slime _is_ hygienic.”

“Hurry it up, will you? We need to interrogate them and find out what they were doing here,” I said. I picked up the Dracon beam and gestured at the prisoners with it. “I guess I should hide out in the bathroom while you do the talking. You’ll know how to get the truth out of other Yeerks. They’re going to have a lot of questions, if they see both of us looking like…” Mercurio looked back and forth between us, our identical suits half-buttoned up, our identical hair in disarray.

Just then, Michelle said, vaguely, “What… the fuck?”

Then Trafit said, “Rrrrr-Animorphs!” 

“Shit,” I said. I had never heard Trafit speak so many syllables out loud before, but I guess they didn’t bring their tablet along on this assassination mission.

Michelle’s eyes went huge. Her degu daemon, Dashiell, ran up to Mercurio and started sniffing him, as if he could figure out the truth by scent alone. “Are you Animorphs?” he said. “Which ones?”

“Efdrrrrram?” Trafit said. “We. Rrrr. Must go.”

“Shut up, Trafit,” Michelle said cheerfully. “Efdram 58 isn’t home. I used you to help me kill Visser One, but I’m not on your side, you Empire trash.”

“You. _What_?” said Trafit. Aftran didn’t say as much, but her expression on my face said the same thing. 

Aftran looked to Trafit. “Okay, I’ve had enough of you.” TSEEW! I took her cue and stunned them quiet.

She turned to Michelle. “All right, what’s going on?”

“I’m not Efdram 58,” said Michelle. “That’s what’s going on. Have you been to the main Pool on the ship recently? It’s getting more and more chaotic over there. I managed to slip away. Can you tell me which Animorphs you are? And how did you get here?”

I turned to Aftran. “How do we know she’s telling the truth?”

Aftran kept my face carefully blank. “There is one way to know for sure.”

“Right,” I said. I turned to Michelle, if it really was Michelle, and not Efdram 58 putting on an elaborate act. “I’m sorry, Michelle. If you’re a Controller, then after we have this conversation, I’m going to have to kill you. But if you’re not, let’s introduce ourselves. My name is Eva López.” I focused on the rattlesnake again, and watched gray scales race up my brown arms. Michelle gasped. I focused back on myself, and the scales disappeared. Dashiell looked up at Mercurio in awe. “And I’m an Animorph.”

I looked at Aftran. Slime started to ooze out of her eyes and her nose, leaking out of her pores as she began to demorph. “And I’m Aftran 942, and I’m an Animorph, too.”

Michelle watched in mute, transfixed horror as Aftran demorphed. It was always an unspeakably disgusting sight, and it must have been even worse with me there for comparison. It was like watching a version of myself melt away, like that scene with the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz, but with nauseating sound effects. 

When she was done demorphing, I picked her up from my suit puddled on the floor. “There’s only one place we could have gotten the morphing power from,” I said. “You know we’re telling the truth. But now we have to find out if you’re telling the truth, too. Will you let me?” I said.

Michelle looked down at the Yeerk in my hand, and back up at me. Dashiell extended a little paw to feel into Mercurio’s feathers, as if to test if they were real. Mercurio allowed it, tucking his head down to watch him. Michelle bit her lip, and nodded.

“I’m sorry, by the way,” I said. “I know exactly how much this sucks. But Aftran will be as gentle with you as she can.” And I held Aftran to Michelle’s ear.

I had no idea what would happen if Aftran tried to infest someone who was already infested, but everything that happened from that moment seemed normal. She wriggled her way into Michelle’s ear. There was a tiny glistening slime trail left there. Michelle’s expression went vague and fuzzy. Dashiell collapsed in a limp little fur pile on the ground.

I waited about ten minutes. I took the time to zip up my fly, button up my dress shirt, and let Mercurio comb my hair with his beak. Finally, Aftran appeared again in Michelle’s ear. I held her in my hand, and I almost put her back in my brain, but then she started growing again. I put her down on the bed and let her morph me again. By the time she was done with the morph, Michelle had come out of her post-infestation funk.

“She’s telling the truth,” Aftran said. “She’s fully herself. That host-breaker was no match for her. The Hork-Bajir guard leading her away from the de-infestation pier had an episode,” she gave me a significant look, “and Michelle managed to get away in the confusion. She found Trafit while pretending to be her Yeerk, and convinced them to join her in a coup.”

I looked at Michelle and smiled. “Did you really come to my quarters to kill me?” I said.

“Uh… yes?” Michelle said awkwardly.

I pressed my thumbs to the force-cuffs so the biometrics would release them. I kissed Michelle on the cheek. “Thank you, Michelle. That was good of you.”

I sat back on the bed and looked at Michelle. She rubbed at her sore wrists. Dashiell had backed up from Mercurio as if he had some kind of disease. Michelle’s eyes were as wide as saucers. “Hey, I mean it!” I said. “If I had still been a slave to Visser One, I’d have been so grateful if you had come to kill me. Now, there’s some things I’ve got to catch you up on. If the guards at the Yeerk Pool are starting to break, well… I think it might be time to make a move. Don’t you, Aftran?”

Aftran nodded. “Yes. This is a sign. Now is the time,” she said.

“Great.” I picked up the suit and threw it back at Aftran with a glare. “Now put this back on, you’re giving Michelle an eyeful.”

Michelle laughed. “Sister, you have nothing to be embarrassed about.”

“Don’t give her ideas,” I said, staring meaningfully at Aftran until she put a shirt on.

It took us a while to explain everything to Michelle, but when we were done, Dashiell stood on his hind legs and reached up a paw to touch the tip of Mercurio’s flipper, and said, “You don’t have to do this alone anymore. I’m here with you. And I’ll be with you until we’ve won this thing, or we all get ourselves killed.”

Mercurio dipped his penguin head solemnly. I grinned at Michelle. It felt so unspeakably good to have an ally on my side who wasn’t in my brain all the time. A real friend, not a parasite.

“You ready?” I said.

Michelle laughed and shook her head. “No, but let’s do it anyway.”

I didn’t even bother asking Aftran if she was ready. She had been with me through all of this, and she would be with me now. She started to demorph back to Yeerk. We'd practiced with the audio file the Animorphs had sent me from the rebel Taxxons, and I couldn't make the sounds properly without Aftran's help. This time, Michelle was smart enough not to watch. Once again, I picked up Aftran from my crumpled suit on the floor, and held her to my ear. Inside of my mind, I felt her nearly vibrate with excitement.

I went up to the terminal and programmed in a command to activate every speaker in every available room of the Pool ship, including sonar-electric speakers inside of the Pools, both the main pool and the special high-ranking Visser Pool. Everywhere, throughout the ship, our voices would be heard.

I put on my best talking-to-politicians voice and said: 

“Hello to the residents of the Pool ship Hett Simplat. Yeerks may be experiencing issues with controlling your hosts. If so, don’t worry. We’ve got everything under control. Please peacefully return to the Pool and surrender your host. The illness will resolve. You will most likely recover. You just won’t be able to control your host anymore. 

“Any newly-freed hosts who are wandering the ship, please only use violence in self-defense. Wait for assistance. We are going to arrange a transfer of power as peacefully and smoothly as we can under the circumstances. You may be wondering why you should listen to me, and why Visser One is advising you that you all resolve this situation peacefully. Allow me to introduce myself. I am not Visser One. My name is Eva López and Mercurio.”

Michelle leaned toward the microphone at the terminal. Her smile blazed at me furiously. “I’m Michelle Clark and Dashiell.”

Aftran leaned in and said, “And I’m Aftran 942.”

Then Aftran focused on my timber rattlesnake morph, my reminder of Diamanta, channeling everything she'd learned from riding in the mind of an _estreen_. Gray scales crusted over my face. My tongue became thin and forked in my mouth. The glottis that kept food and water from going down the wrong pipe filled my throat, nearly closing it off completely.

Then we said our names again. Who we were, and what we stood for. This time in Sky Hive's language, and the language of ver people.

A deck below us, there was a sound so vast that it resounded through the floor. The whole ship seemed to creak and groan as Sky Hive blasted the doors open to Cargo Bay 3 and flooded outward in a mass of fungi and mud and joyous Taxxons. Michelle and I looked at each other and grinned. I morphed away all traces of the snake. We leaned into the microphone and said together:

“Welcome to the Peace Movement, motherfuckers!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want you all to know that I have had the last scene in this chapter planned for years and I am so thrilled to finally share it with you all.
> 
> Tidwell was talking about the Spanish Civil War and the fascist rule of Francisco Franco.
> 
> The next fic in the series, which I will post very soon, is a short one-shot sequel to Putting Down Roots, following the development of Tobias and Rachel's relationship. The next major plot installment will cover the fallout from the virus and the arrival of the Andalite fleet. This will be followed by an epilogue fic.


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